1. How I get treated by other people
Doctors
My favorite feeling is having a doctor look at my file and immediately dismiss me as having an addiction. It doesn’t matter what I’m there for, they immediately assume that I’m there to get drugs. Even when I’m screaming in pain because I have a kidney stone stuck in my urethra giving me a raging infection in danger of turning septic, I really like it when they tell me that the pain can’t be that bad and that I should just get over it. It’s even better when they tell me kidney stones aren’t really that painful and nobody could endure the kind of pain I say I have. It’s so great that because I have taken pain medication in the past I am refused treatment for any illness that I’ll ever have in the future. I love that I could have cancer and no doctor would care.
Family/friends/acquaintances
I relish being judged by other people for taking pain medicine. It feels spectacular when people suggest that I’d feel better if I wasn’t so fat, or if I exercised more, or if I bought their magic shake that costs $400 a month. And if I don’t take their suggestions, then my chronic pain is my own fault, because clearly, I don’t actually want to get better. I must just be an addict.
I also love all the sly insinuation like “well I have some health problems and I just keep going on with my life, I would never stoop so low as to take drugs. There’s no real reason for drugs if you just have a good attitude.”
2. I get put in the same category as heroin addicts
I really love how people assume that taking pain medication is the same as illegal drugs. I love how no one thinks that taking pain medication actually addresses my pain. I’m thrilled that instead of suggesting treatment for my chronic pain, people insinuate that I need to go to rehab. I truly believe that addiction is a disease, but it’s not a disease that I have.
3. The skyrocketing costs of receiving pain medication
I’m elated that pain medication used to be something most people in pain could afford, but now that people with addiction use life-saving pain medicine and illegal drugs, I get to take a $3000 drug test every month. Oh, and insurance won’t pay for it because it isn’t a medical need.
It’s also fantastic that insurance no longer covers pain medication in the guise of “preventing addiction” (but really to save money, they won’t treat addiction either), so that costs out of pocket. Plus now I have to go to the doctor more frequently so I get to pay for more doctors visits, just so I can be written a drug test and a prescription (the doctor certainly doesn’t do any additional work).
4. Addiction is a disease that should be treated, but chronic pain is something to “get over”
The tide is finally turning when it comes to how addiction is viewed in the country. Increasingly “safe injection sites” are being set aside to keep people with addiction safe. This is past due, but meanwhile but no one cares that people with chronic pain are still being punished. While the lives of people with addiction are being saved, people with chronic pain are dying.
While I recognize that this comes off as an embittered rant, I’m tired of being nice about people in pain losing access to treatment. Over and over again it has been revealed that the so-called opioid epidemic has nothing to do with chronic pain, and yet everyday people in pain are being removed from treatment cold turkey. There is no excuse for this, none. I’m done with people in pain dying of an epidemic that has nothing to do with them.
