Nickie’s Nook: Oils and Books

This post isn’t going to be my usual type of blog post. Usually, I try to write about topics lightly. In my previous blog, I wrote anything and everything. My goal for this blog is to focus on the more positive aspects of my life, using oils and the progress I’ve made along with other oil-related topics and hopefully a book at some point in the future.

However, sometimes it’s vital to give some context or background. Just because I’ve made progress doesn’t mean everything is perfect and it doesn’t mean that society doesn’t need to work on its approach to pain. As I will be focusing on my use of oils to increase comfort and personally make progress in the next post or so, I feel it’s important that people are aware that just because I’ve been able to make progress, it doesn’t give medicine or regulators a pass on working to improve the lives of people who suffer from chronic pain.

Basically, people with chronic pain are the collateral damage in the “war on the opioid epidemic”. Please note: on no account am I saying we shouldn’t take care of those suffering from addiction to any substance. That said, those of us who deal with chronic pain often feel like our lives aren’t considered to be as important.

Much of the treatment available to people with chronic pain is not new. Most medications I’ve tried were originally designed for other conditions like seizures or depression.

Before I go too far, let me specify that those of us with chronic pain don’t really care what treatment is used as long as it’s effective, there aren’t many side-effects and it increases our quality of life. Right now, there aren’t a lot of good options and some of the ones we do have are being taken away from us.

This is where things get tricky. as a person with pain, I’ve heard the “you’re a drug seeker” comment from ER doctors and others who don’t understand my condition. Truth be told, I’m a relief seeker. If there were effective non-opioid treatments available to me when I needed them, I’d choose them, but there are very few.

What makes us feel like collateral damage is that our needs aren’t taken seriously. “Guidelines” have been written without input from pain patients or pain management doctors. The drug enforcement agency has created quotas around how much pain medicine companies can produce, not based on how much patients might need, but how much they think should be available This affects me personally when one of my meds is unavailable. I have one for migraines which can be administered by a non-oral route. It’s kept me stable and out of the ER for a few years. I use it when I have a bad migraine because absolutely nothing else works. we’ve tried everything and it’s either had a negative side-effect or been completely useless.

If government created a quota of how much insulin could be produced, it would be on the news and there would be protests in front of DEA headquarters. I can imagine that some people might be thinking “you can’t die from lack of pain medicine”. Those people would be wrong! In the case of my medicine, (sorry for the TMI), if I get sick to my stomach from the migraine pain, I can’t do anything to get it down and I can’t do anything to get the pain down by taking a pill since the stomach won’t accept it. Without the ability to keep liquids in, dehydration can kill.

Poorly managed pain can have many effects including on the blood pressure and heart rate, but it is a cause of suicide and suicide attempts. When you’re in so much pain that you can’t do much, you can’t work, go out with your friends, play with your kids or do things around the house, it’s more than being uncomfortable… it’s demoralizing.

I’m not sure where I heard this statistic, but at one point, people with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (my pain disorder) were said to have a 70% suicide attempt rate. That’s why it’s known as the suicide disease. There are several things I’d like to mention here. First, I’m not saying we should go back to giving pain pills out without considering the consequences. When other options will work well, I’m happy to use them. The problem is that there is too little research being done on chronic pain treatments. I’m very fortunate that I found essential oils and supplements because they’ve made a huge difference in my stability and ability to function But most doctors and people with pain aren’t aware of them and even if they are, they may not know how to use them or know about the differences in quality of essential oils between companies. Also, while essential oils have helped me, they may not be the best option for others.

We need more options for treatment and more training for patients and doctors on how to use the integrative options that are available. We also need the government to stop tying our doctors’ hands. Doctors monitor us for signs of addiction. My doctor counts my pain meds every time I come in and can order a random urine screening to make sure I’m only taking what I’m prescribed. While those measures can make me feel like I’m being treated like a criminal, I can accept that they are being done to protect the provider as well as myself. What I can’t accept is the government or someone who doesn’t know my case telling my provider how much she can prescribe me or the government making it impossible for me to get the meds I need by limiting what companies can produce.

One last point: if you do some research, you’ll find that as restrictions around pain medication prescribing and quotas have become more strict, overdoses have actually gone up. The predominant theory behind this is that some people with pain just can’t take it and go to the street.

As I said at the beginning, I don’t want to see cases of addiction or overdoses increase, I absolutely believe there must be better options available to the world at large.

I hope this post has made you think and understand a bit more about the world people with pain live in.