When I was medically forced off opioids, it was as if someone pushed me out into a tornado and there was nothing I could do but hope the storm ends.

Hopefully, my experience will bring the necessary attention to the ongoing lack of treatment and understanding of chronic pain. To emphasize, you, family members, neighbors, co-workers, and friends need quality treatment choices for pain, not rejection. We have a serious opioid problem that needs addressing, not ignored, abandoned, or brushed under the carpet.

Here is my real story. I wish mine was the only story, but sadly, it is not. 

Warning: This is intense and disturbing, with an ending you don’t want to miss.

A Life No One Wants To Live

Living with Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome CRPS (1) , for 21 years. I managed to survive the suicide disease (2) with treatment from opioids. Still, I was living daily in pain at a level of 7-10. In short, it is not a good or happy life, but it’s a life I have learned to manage, constantly reminding myself that I should be here. Indeed, there is a reason for me to be here and why I am going through all of this.

There were days that I could not reason with the pain, and I just wanted to die or cut off my leg. This frequently left me thinking that suicide was a better option, but I always found a way to survive one more painful day. My reasoning always returned to me reciting, “I have never had more put on me than I can handle. I will find a way through this too.”

Then boom! In November 2015, my primary physician shook my life to the very core. It was as if an earthquake knocked me off my feet, as a tornado swept me up, whirling and throwing me miles from where I belonged.

At my annual physical, my doctor informed me that he could no longer provide my prescription for OxyContin due to an office policy change. He made it seem so routine, like renewing an insurance policy. He was trying to convince me that it was no big deal. As I walked out of his office, he stated, “I don’t know who will help you.” With this in mind, I exited his office confused, extraordinarily concerned, and scared.

Sucker Punched

It felt as if my longtime trusted friend had just turned on me, throwing, and punching at my core after 21 years and leaving me gasping for help.

In 21 years, not one complication, concern, or complaint about my use of opioids! I never once lost a pill, asked for a prescription early, or missed a doctor’s appointment. Never! Think about that for a minute, for 21 years, 252 doctor appointments, not to mention the five years of experimental treatments. I was never late and always followed the doctor’s orders. Hours were spent in the waiting room to call me back to an exam room and for the doctor to enter.

This was not just my life ... but also the lives of millions of other chronic pain patients. My entire life revolved around my pain and health. Monthly appointments were required with the doctor to have access to my medications. At no time did I complain or ask for special treatment. I was so thankful someone was willing to help me. I handled this very responsibly because it was my LIFE.

Doctors Afraid of Me

I found myself with no doctor (3) wanting to help me. My doctors knew my health history but could not support me. They knew and documented I lived in chronic pain while struggling with other severe medical conditions. It was as easy as draining the tub or taking out the trash to throw me out. Leaving my family and me asking where is their commitment to treating my pain and health?

It was like a light switch was turned off, and everything was erased. What once made sense went to black. Once respected for my courage and strength, doctors often asked me how I stayed so strong. They even asked me to help other pain patients. In contrast, now I was treated like a criminal, a drug addict, the scum of the earth. All because I took an FDA-approved drug that doctors prescribed for 21 years, with medical professionals never expressing any concerns beyond constipation. So why am I being forced off opioids? Nothing is healthy, safe, or easy when being forced off opioids with no help!

All Alone

Without delay, I searched for a doctor who would help me. One pain specialist, considered by some to be the best, said he would help me get off all my opioids in 1 week. A point often overlooked: for him, it was easy, as his health was not at risk. He insisted I enter rehab immediately with an order for methadone. In a week, I would be ultimately off opioids. Next step, he would schedule me for a spinal cord stimulator to be installed in my back.

Not once did we discuss my health or how this would impact my life. He didn’t care that I was in the middle of a severe lung infection, and we didn’t know why. Nor that I had a ruptured tendon in my CRPS foot that would not heal. To listen to him say that in one week, I would be free of opioids and life would be good was absolutely cringe-worthy!

What is Proper Pain Treatment

First, if it was that easy and such a proper treatment, why had it taken 21 years to recommend this? Better yet, why did anyone ever start me on opioids? I was talked down to while informed that I was a weak person. There was no room for discussion; it was his way or the highway. Given this ultimatum, I decided to take the road right out of his office, realizing it would be hard to find a doctor to help.

I was trying to reconcile how in October 2015, it was perfectly acceptable to be on 240 mg a day of OxyContin. Then, within one month, I became a risk to treat. I was viewed as the worst person in the world. Asking a doctor to help me labeled me a pill shopper. I wasn’t doing this out of choice; it was a necessity. I was forced off opioids.

Every doctor I met would say, “Just get down to 90 mg a day, then I can help you”. Not one doctor offered me a prescription of 90 mg, leaving me asking more questions with alarms going off in my head. Now I wasn’t only looking for a doctor who would help me. I was looking for why I had become a bad person all of a sudden. What could I have done to make everyone treat me like I had the plague?

Labeled a Risk to Treat

This office policy change made me question what I had done wrong. Am I an awful person for taking the FDA-approved drug for CRPS, as doctors have been prescribing me for decades? To point out, I only took this drug because doctors, hospitals, and insurance approved the treatment. How can this now be all my problem? They kicked me in the core right when I needed their help the most. They left me drowning with no life vest, and no one was willing to rescue me. 

To emphasize, I was extremely ill, and it was silence from my doctors. No crickets were even in the distance. I found myself not sure of anything anymore. My family was helpless. They could say nothing to make me feel like life was worth living. I cried, screamed, and begged to die. Just wanted this to end! I have lived this painful life long enough. As soon as I wiped the tears from my eyes, I saw the faces of my family. The pain I could see in their faces only made my heart break, and this was all because of me. Their pain and struggle could end if I were gone.

Suicide On The Table Again

Once again, suicide was on the table. Nothing was adding up as to why I should be forced off opioids. I found myself playing the recording in my head. “You always find a way out, and you will find a way through this.” I first had to stop letting doctors’ negative, destructive comments and actions control my thoughts. I was not a bad person, and I had not done anything wrong. As I accepted that no one would help me with my serious health conditions, I found my will to fight. Quickly I remembered I had a voice and had to use it and began to tell anyone and everyone who would listen that I needed help. I learned millions were suffering... the same fate.

Soon I realized that to obtain any help, I would be torn down. Ultimately I reevaluated everything I was taught and knew. As a medical professional, I could no longer reconcile how the medical community treats chronic pain patients. I had only one person I could count on, me! This is my life; I am living it, and I must find a way to be in charge myself (4).

Don’t Judge Me Based on Someone Else Actions

I was referred to a physician that I thought was interested in helping me; it became an awful experience. His first words were, “I do not need patients like you; people like you don’t want help; you just want to get high.” I reminded him I was referred by a physician he knew and I provided him with my entire medical file in advance for review. Surprisingly, he made it very clear he didn’t care who referred me, and my medical record was too extensive to review.

It shocked me that a doctor used my extensive medical history as an obstacle to help me. I found myself sitting in the exam room, begging him to help me, “Just help me to reduce safely,” I pleaded. We were no longer discussing controlling my pain or managing my health. We were only talking about how to reduce my opioids. I was no longer a patient with multiple medical conditions. I was just an opioid abuser.

I left this appointment so angry and determined that I would learn to reduce my opioids and manage my pain. I had to become my own health advocate. How he treated me made me determined that he would learn to respect and like me by the end of this. Correctly, he will see me for the person I am, not the person he created in his mind that I don’t know. Do not judge me before you know who I am. No one should ever be judged for wanting to manage their health and improve pain!

They Almost Convinced Me

Doctors ignored, tore down, called me names, and treated me as the scum of the earth. I almost believed them. Why? You first must understand chronic pain (5) and its impact on a person’s mind and body. Not to mention the effect opioids have on how your brain processes pain. A doctor can create a real storm in a person’s head, leading to increased suicides or accidental overdoses (6). Any doctor that abandons a chronic pain patient immediately puts her or him in harm’s way.

Understanding chronic pain is hard unless you live it yourself. No one can understand drug dependency and the impact of how it feels when forced off opioids. Our conversation should have begun here. Instead, it has become a reactive decision based on everything but the patient and safe treatments. This crisis plays out every day by millions of Americans. Very few even know this is happening and why our stories need to be told and heard.

A Life My Doctors Could Not Give Me

I no longer ever think of suicide or ending my life. Instead, I wake up every day excited to advocate for patients. I learned how to use medical Cannabis to eliminate my opioids and control my pain, completing 19 tapers on my own with no help beyond Cannabis. Most noteworthy, I no longer use or need OxyContin to manage my pain.

No one believed I could do it. No one believed in me. I believed in myself and Cannabis, devoting every minute of my life to learning everything I can about Cannabis. My doctor now sees who I am. He likes me and respects me. Being forced off opioids placed me into a scary world that almost killed me. Left all alone, I was out on a ledge that could have sent me over the edge.

Today I live in a pain level of 3, something doctors thought was impossible. I am thankful every day for my improved life. Living life again, not just surviving, I can laugh, relax, and be in the moment, something I completely lost the ability to do.

We Are Here To Help

Effective Cannabis is here to assist, guide, and support anyone forced off opioids. We fight to put a face on the treatment of chronic pain to end the torture. No one should ever have to fight to access treatments for existing documented medical conditions. Medical Cannabis is a safe treatment choice that can improve pain when correctly understood and administered. It is a commitment but one very worth the work.

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