Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
BBC NEWS wrote: The Heroin Ravaged City Fighting Back
Huntington, West Virginia is targeting the drugs companies that it blames for its epidemic.
See the young man attending the Yoga for Addicts. He spells it out for you -- Go to the doctor, or the pain clinic. Tell the doctor or nurse practitioner that you have back pain, or some other chronic pain. The doc writes the prescription without bothering to see if there's anything else that can be done, or if you are taking more drugs than is 'safe'. Go to the drug store, fill the prescription, and that's that.Esquire wrote:What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
Pill mills. Basically doctors willing to write if you can pay out of pocket or have Medicaid. They are cracking down on them so hard that it's effecting everyone who needs opiats for actual pain.Esquire wrote:What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
Exactly. (except for the DEA burn)Flagg wrote:Pill mills. Basically doctors willing to write if you can pay out of pocket or have Medicaid. They are cracking down on them so hard that it's effecting everyone who needs opiats for actual pain.Esquire wrote:What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
This is leading to addicts turning to heroin. Because black markets are good for the DEA. They can seize more property and money that way.
I'm the last person who would claim there is not an issue with overprescribing pain meds. But they went from one pole (pain meds for all!) to the other (fuck you, junky!) in a matter of months. I lay a ton of the blame on the clinics themselves.LadyTevar wrote:Exactly. (except for the DEA burn)Flagg wrote:Pill mills. Basically doctors willing to write if you can pay out of pocket or have Medicaid. They are cracking down on them so hard that it's effecting everyone who needs opiats for actual pain.Esquire wrote:What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
This is leading to addicts turning to heroin. Because black markets are good for the DEA. They can seize more property and money that way.
It was easier and more profitable for a doc to hand out pills to someone in pain than to actually fix what was wrong. Since opiods are not only addictive, you also build up tolerance, more pills were needed to block out the pain, and it snowballed.
As for why there's so many needing pain pills? Coal miners and other blue-color workers injured on the job. Veterans with war wounds. Car wreck victims. Or people in Flagg's situation, where the body just starts breaking down. Add in the large elderly populace in WV, and it's a perfect storm.
Sometimes you can't fix what's wrong - but opiates are far from ideal for chronic pain. Thing is, it's a hell of a lot easier (and cheaper) to hand out opiates that try all the alternatives first, which is time consuming and requires input from a doctor and other personnel, all of which must be paid.LadyTevar wrote:It was easier and more profitable for a doc to hand out pills to someone in pain than to actually fix what was wrong. Since opiods are not only addictive, you also build up tolerance, more pills were needed to block out the pain, and it snowballed.
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I threw my back out, almost had a ruptured disc, in so much pain I couldn't drive to the doctor, I had to walk since that was easier, I got ibuprofen and paracetamol (acetosomething in the us) and a referral to a physiotherapist to work up my back muscles and such.LadyTevar wrote:See the young man attending the Yoga for Addicts. He spells it out for you -- Go to the doctor, or the pain clinic. Tell the doctor or nurse practitioner that you have back pain, or some other chronic pain. The doc writes the prescription without bothering to see if there's anything else that can be done, or if you are taking more drugs than is 'safe'. Go to the drug store, fill the prescription, and that's that.
This. The pain clinic I went to had one or 2 doctors handing them out like candy. One of them owned the place and had 18 patients OD. I got treated like a criminal with a piss test every visit.Simon_Jester wrote:It only takes a few corrupt or foolish physicians to turn one place into the prescription-spam capital of the state if not the region. How many prescriptions can one doctor hand out in a day, if they hurry? Multiply a bit and you see the problem.
The pharmaceutical companies went around marketing shit like OxyContin to doctors as a new wonderdrug that was not addictive but worked as well or better than other opioids. I think history alone has shown that to be bullshit. I don't know if these people have a case, but it wasn't the doctors alone.Alyrium Denryle wrote:Granting all of the above... suing the pharmaceutical companies? Really? They just make the stuff, and it is medically necessary for some patients. They have zero duty of care with respect to how opiates are prescribed and used, nor is there a mechanism by which they could reasonably act to reduce ODs even if they DID have such a duty of care.
It is like suing the auto-industry for drunk driving fatalities for which there is no design flaw or manufacturing failure in the vehicle.
When my back first went out, my insurance company ok'd 22 visits to a therapist... in a One Year Period. Now, 22 visits goes by quick when you're seeing them twice a week, and by the time my insurance co stopped paying, I was just starting to show improvemnt, but couldn't afford to go back.Broomstick wrote:It's not just that we've been trained to eat pills (although we have), it's that our health insurance is more willing to cover a prescription than labor-intensive individual work-ups, treatment plans, and long-term physical therapy. The costs are such that even if a patient wanted the more effective, non-opiate option it would be nearly impossible for ordinary mortals to pay out of their own pocket for it when the insurance company turns them down.
Yeah, the biggest winners under Obamacare just got the champion fucking title under President Pussygrabber so that's likely going to get worse for everyone. I'm scared shitless my new Medicaid insurance will make me change doctors.LadyTevar wrote:When my back first went out, my insurance company ok'd 22 visits to a therapist... in a One Year Period. Now, 22 visits goes by quick when you're seeing them twice a week, and by the time my insurance co stopped paying, I was just starting to show improvemnt, but couldn't afford to go back.Broomstick wrote:It's not just that we've been trained to eat pills (although we have), it's that our health insurance is more willing to cover a prescription than labor-intensive individual work-ups, treatment plans, and long-term physical therapy. The costs are such that even if a patient wanted the more effective, non-opiate option it would be nearly impossible for ordinary mortals to pay out of their own pocket for it when the insurance company turns them down.
The insurance company also had a 20visit limit to my psychologist after my mental breakdown shortly before Martin died, so it's not just physical therapy that gets shafted.
Taking that into consideration, if the mass suicide note known as the AHCA were to actually become law, we would probably see problems with opioids get even worse, because more people are going to be forced to turn to opioids, prescription or otherwise, because they lose their insurance and can't pay the 5-6 figure cost for the therapy or surgery that might actually fix the problem.Broomstick wrote:It's not just that we've been trained to eat pills (although we have), it's that our health insurance is more willing to cover a prescription than labor-intensive individual work-ups, treatment plans, and long-term physical therapy. The costs are such that even if a patient wanted the more effective, non-opiate option it would be nearly impossible for ordinary mortals to pay out of their own pocket for it when the insurance company turns them down.
I've mentioned this guy before, but there was a doctor from my state (which, while not as bad as WV, has one of the highest rates of drug abuse in the country) who ran a pill mill and was recently convicted of millions of dollars worth of fraud for charging Medicare and Medicaid for procedures that he didn't do. His clinic in the next state over wrote more prescriptions for painkillers than every other hospital in that state combined. In a state with a fairly large number of hospitals for its size.Simon_Jester wrote:It only takes a few corrupt or foolish physicians to turn one place into the prescription-spam capital of the state if not the region. How many prescriptions can one doctor hand out in a day, if they hurry? Multiply a bit and you see the problem.
