The Opioid Crisis

Well, it looks like this blog is going to happen because I need a place to talk about what is going on in the world and more specifically in my world. The Opioid Crisis has hit home. I have chronic pain that has been with me for almost a decade now. I manage it fairly well most days, not even OTC meds for the majority of the year. Once a week or so I have to take something for it and every couple of months it gets bad enough to need serious pain control. I also have frequent kidney stones (over 200 before I stopped counting) so opioids and I are on intimate terms. I dislike the feeling coming down from them so I only take them when I absolutely must. This weekend a stone hit that I didn’t get the pain meds on board fast enough so I took a trip to the ER. When I finally was in control of the pain they sent me home with the smallest amount of pills at the weakest strength telling me I was lucky to get those because they didn’t prescribe pain pills anymore. What?!? If you have never had a kidney stone I highly recommend you don’t. I’d rather be stabbed again than have a kidney stone. I haven’t been prescribed pain pills in 9 months but they are going to let me suffer out a weekend because it is now in vogue to let people suffer. I really do get why people are concerned but when someone has a ton of pain you really need to help them. I was terrified this would happen when I kept hearing the news stories and now it’s hit my little world. We really need to figure out a better way of dealing with the opioid crisis than hurting those already in pain.