By wendy, on May 26th, 2012%
By Wendy Burnett
The terrors of living with chronic non-cancer pain in this climate of opiophobia and prescription drug crackdowns are horrible and constant. Patients are never sure when their doctor will reduce the amount of pain medications he’s willing to prescribe, or when the DEA will come for a doctor who is willing to prescribe adequate amounts of medication and leave them scrambling to avoid the torture of having no medication at all.
I understand the torment of living with chronic pain and having no medication available to ease it; the hopelessness of knowing the pain will ALWAYS be there; and the times when the agony is so bad, so totally unbearable, that you desperately search for a way to kill yourself that won’t torture the people you love with guilt and regret. I’ve lived through all of those things, and much more.
I also understand the misery of having an addict in the family; the fear of the call telling you they’ve overdosed, the belongings that disappear into the local pawnshops to pay for drugs, the mood changes and rages. I’ve been there, I’ve lived with addicts and violent alcoholics; and I know what it’s like. My heart breaks for all the people who are still in that situation, who are desperate to keep their loved one from being able to get the drug that’s causing them so much pain, who think that if the drug was just not available, things would be okay again. Continue reading Opiophobia, Restrictive Laws, and the Torture of Chronic Pain Patients »
By wendy, on November 23rd, 2011%
 by Andrea Kirkby By Wendy Burnett
Day 23: The Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge Prompt (#HAWMC) for today is: “Health Activist Choice. Write about whatever you want!” I like this. Not the subject that I’ve chosen, but the fact that I get to choose.
A friend wrote a post recently about someone who is being denied life-saving surgery because of the expense, and it made me think about the subject of “death panels” that we heard so much about during the original healthcare reform debates.
I think that what most people were missing in that whole controversy is that we’ve had the equivalent of “death panels” for years. Of course, they aren’t called that, if they were, people would be having a fit about them; but they’re there nonetheless. (And they have absolutely NOTHING to do with President Obama’s healthcare reform.)
Every insurance company (including Medicare and Medicaid) has one, usually called something innocuous, like a “treatment review board.” Hospitals have them too, to decide which patients are “appropriate candidates” for transplants or other procedures that can’t be performed for every patient that needs them. They aren’t CALLED death panels, but that’s what they are. What it all boils down to is a committee deciding who lives and who dies.
In an ideal world, everyone who needs a life-saving treatment would get it, but we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a world with limited resources, and a profit-driven society that is controlled by people, institutions, and corporations that care only about making more and more money.
Because of this “profit is everything” mindset, cost is one of the main factors that play into the decisions of these review boards (and is frequently the only thing that actually counts, especially in the for-profit insurance industry.) People die every year because an insurance company wouldn’t pay for a treatment. Even though there is an appeals process in place, by the time a treatment is finally approved (IF it is approved,) the patient may have died or no longer be a good candidate because of the delay.
Medicare and Medicaid aren’t any better, either. Even though neither program is set up to make a profit, their resources are extremely limited. With the current lack of jobs that pay a living wage, even more people are being forced to fall back on government programs for healthcare, straining those resources even more. Throw in Congressional attempts to cut funding for both programs, and the situation becomes even more desperate, leaving even more people to die.
There is a solution, but it’s not likely to happen. The solution is to make people more important than profit margins and six figure bonuses for CEOs. It’s making people more important than cutting costs by cutting hours, reducing benefits and wages, and laying off employees or moving production to countries where you can pay 25 cents an hour. It’s making insurance a non-profit industry, where decisions are based on how likely a treatment is to work, not on how much it will cut into the company’s profits or the committee’s bonus package. It’s also eliminating tax loopholes that allow companies to make billions in profit while paying nothing in taxes, reducing military spending (we spend about 33% more than the next 9 highest spending countries in the world COMBINED) and making congress live with the same healthcare options as the rest of us.
This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J
| If you’ve found the content on this website helpful, and you can afford to, please consider making a contribution to help keep the content coming and the site online. |
|
Source for the military spending comment: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/05/how-does-u-s-defense-spending-compare-with-other-countries/
By wendy, on July 27th, 2011%
By Wendy Burnett
Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria (Storey Medicinal Herb Guide)  by Stephen Buhner is a book that I consult constantly. I finally gave up putting it back on the bookshelf because I just have to drag it out again almost immediately to look something up, and it’s just too much trouble to keep bouncing up to go hunt it.
 Bookshelf. Photograph by Stewart Butterfield. {{cc-by-2.0}}) It’s been an awesome resource, and solved a long-standing physical issue for me (actually, two of them.) I had recurrent sinus infections for YEARS, because they were caused by a resistant strain of bacteria, and no matter what antibiotic my doctor tried, the infection would bounce back within a few months. Even worse, all the antibiotics caused almost constant yeast infections, which would require even more pills to treat them. Continue reading Book Review – Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria »
By wendy, on July 26th, 2011%
By Wendy Burnett
Hypocrisy runs rampant in medicine. Check out this little excerpt from an article about ginger for medicinal use, and pay particular attention to the italicized sentence.
Osteoarthritis
Trials exploring the anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving effects of ginger have provided mixed results, with the majority of trials showing a trend toward pain relief greater than placebo but less than traditional anti-inflammatory drugs. Several trials have methodological flaws, including sponsorship by ginger-manufacturing companies. (emphasis mine) Mechanisms of action have been proposed and include inhibition of prostaglandin and leukotriene synthesis. – excerpted from http://www.drugs.com/npp/ginger.html
Now think about who pays for the studies on prescription medications. The FDA? Nope, not even close. The US government? The government does sponsor some studies of prescription drugs, but not even close to all of them. You want to know who funds the vast majority of clinical trials of prescription medications? The companies that make them, that’s who!
So why is it that clinical trials and studies of prescription medications are considered trustworthy, even though they’re paid for by the very companies that have the most to gain from a positive result? If those studies are acceptable, why are studies sponsored by companies that make herbal supplements considered “questionable” simply because they’re also paid for by a company that has a vested interest in the results?
This kind of attitude causes the medical establishment to refuse to consider alternative treatments, even when those treatments have good science behind them, simply because they’re paid for by the people who make money off them. Doesn’t that mean that they should also take a second look at prescription medications when the studies supporting them are paid for by the company that makes them?
 If you enjoyed this post, and would like to get a notification when new posts are available, please sign up for either my RSS feed or email list on the right near the top of the page.
By wendy, on July 18th, 2011%
By Wendy Burnett
Have you ever wondered how safe the medications you take really are? Dr. Bremner’s book is a scary expose’ of how far pharmaceutical companies will go to protect their profits and keep you from finding out about the real dangers of the medications they make. His experience as a researcher, psychiatrist and speaker for the pharmaceutical companies has given him an insider’s view of how drugs are marketed; as well as how their dangers are minimized and hidden in the name of sales.
Dr. Bremner shares the story of his research into the acne drug Accutane, an almost miraculous treatment for severe acne. He describes Hoffman – La Roche’s attempts to prevent the study, their adamant denials of any possibility that it could cause suicidal depression in some patients, and their desperate efforts to discredit him and his findings.
I was so fascinated (and horrified) once I started reading that I finished the book in a single day. Continue reading Review: The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg »
By wendy, on September 5th, 2010%
Are you confused by the whole healthcare reform hoopla, and what it will mean to you as a person with a chronic illness? Most of the articles I’ve read about it have been written from the perspective of healthy people, and that wasn’t very helpful for me. In addition, political biases and slanting to encourage readers to support one view or another made it even harder for me to figure out whether the reform package was something that would help me or hurt me.
I’m still not really sure what I think of it, other than that I DON’T think it’s going to last long enough to really make any difference. If the republicans get control of Congress, they’ll gut it (or repeal it,) using the money for more bailouts of rich companies; and it’s looking more and more like they’ll be back in power after the next election.
The only thing I’m really sure of in this whole thing is that the system we have now DOES NOT WORK. For-profit healthcare leaves the poor out in the cold, but the government-controlled systems in other countries don’t work any better, with ridiculously long wait times for “elective” surgery and referrals to specialists.
I think what is needed is some sort of “hybrid” system. We need controls on the insurance companies so that they can no longer “play God” by refusing necessary treatment or setting premiums so high that those with “pre-existing conditions” aren’t priced out of the market. (The current law appears to address that issue, but until those provisions are implemented, we have no way of knowing if it will be effective.)
We ALSO need controls on the government’s ability to determine what treatments we have access to, and their ability to interfere between doctors and patients by determining what level of treatment is acceptable. (Some jackass in congress (or on a committee;) has no idea what my pain levels are, or how they interfere with me being able to live my life, so why should they be able to decide how much medication is “enough” to treat that pain?)
Personally, I’m totally confused by the whole mess, so I’m going to “wait and see” if it actually does me any good.
By wendy, on August 11th, 2010%
The latest ChronicBabe carnival is up and ready to go . . . Lots of points of view and helpful information about dealing with doctors, etc. is available for your reading pleasure.
By wendy, on August 6th, 2010%
The next ChronicBabe carnival topic is “how do you deal with the medical establishment.” Since I lost my insurance two years ago, I hadn’t dealt with them at all until last month when I had to go to the emergency room, and ended up in the hospital for 5 days with no pain meds. I had my first visit with a rheumatologist since Oct. 2007 on Monday, and that experience wasn’t a whole lot better. Continue reading The Medical “Establishment” – Thanks; but No, I Don’t Think I Will »
By wendy, on July 14th, 2010%
 Some of the fireworks I missed while in the hospital. I just had the most awful holiday weekend EVER, thanks to my fibromyalgia, not having had insurance in two years, and the prejudice in the medical field against those living with chronic pain.
I got up last Friday(July 2) to start getting ready for work, and started passing huge amounts of fresh, liquid (and very red) blood. Naturally enough, that scared the hell out of me, and when it happened for the fourth time in an hour-and-a-half, I called in sick and headed to the emergency room at our local hospital. Since I wasn’t sure if it was related to one of my pre-existing conditions, and the insurance through my husband’s job doesn’t cover those for another couple of weeks (they have one of those clauses that says they won’t pay claims related to anything that was diagnosed before your coverage started for the first twelve months,) I went to the charity/teaching hospital, just in case it turned out not to be covered.
My first mistake was having the hubby drop me off, rather than calling an ambulance, assuming that even as a walk-in patient I would be seen within a reasonable length of time. (I guessed that it would take three to four hours to see a doctor, since I was bleeding, but it wasn’t VISIBLE. Boy was I ever wrong.) I arrived at the ER at approximately 2 PM Friday afternoon, and was FINALLY moved to a treatment room at 3 AM Saturday morning. That’s THIRTEEN hours of sitting in the waiting room, hoping I wouldn’t bleed to death before they got around to seeing me and watching people who came in after I did get treated and released because they didn’t need a “trauma room.” Continue reading Hospitals, Unfamiliar Doctors, and Fibromyalgia: What’s Your Experience? »
By wendy, on June 9th, 2010%
The state of Washington has passed a bill (SHB 2876) that could limit access to treatment for your pain and set dosage limits on opioid pain medications. This is a serious issue for all of those who live with chronic pain and their families/caregivers, as well as for society as a whole. Inadequate pain control results in more frequent doctor visits, increased work absences, lower productivity, higher rates of disability and an increased need for social programs such as food stamps. It can also cause depression, anxiety, cognitive impairment (difficulty thinking, reasoning, or remembering,) a compromised immune system, chronic stress, an impaired ability to perform everyday tasks such as dressing or housework, limited mobility, disturbed sleep and more. Continue reading Do You Live With Chronic Pain? Your Right to Adequate Treatment is Under Attack! »
|
If you enjoy the content on this website, you can keep it coming by donating to help keep the site online.
"The moral test of a society is how that society treats those who are in the dawn of life . . . the children; those who are in the twilight of life . . . the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life . . . the sick, the needy, and the handicapped."
---Hubert Humphrey
Welcome to the new home of Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired. I hope you'll enjoy the changes, and the new resources I'll be adding as I have time to work on the site. Things will look a bit odd while I learn where and how to modify the appearance, so please bear with me.
|
Popular Posts