Call to Action – CDC Opioid Guidelines

Please take all non-opioid options into account when producing your guidelines. We have life changing therapies that should not be ignored.

There are many interventional treatment options that a pain medicine physician can provide a patient that can help reduce or eliminate the need for opioid medications.

Need to include more medical providers when drafting legislation.

We need action on clear and sensible therapies. NO MORE RED TAPE

If it were not for pain management, I would not be able to take care of myself. I wish I didn't need them but the reality is that to be able to move I do.

Interventional pain management (IPM) techniques should be readily available to qualified doctors and the patients they serve, as these treatments may be the most effective, least invasive, and least dangerous ways to mitigate the pain and dysfunction experienced by the patient. Right now, I am unable to benefit from a minimally invasive, low risk, lower cost procedure covered by Medicare, due to its proven safety and effectiveness, because my private insurer refuses to cover it. My only alternative is a risky, expensive spinal fusion surgery. Recognizing IPMs could significantly improve the quality of my life and the lives of countless other pain sufferers.

We desperately need alternative pain treatments to opioids.. Not enough research is done to help patients with chronic pain .

The treatments I received from Dr David Kloth helped immensely in relieving my back pain, as well as leg pain and numbness.

Pain Management procedures are medically necessary for quality of life without it I'm unable to function physically & mentally due to pain.

This action is long overdue!

intervential pain management services are crucial to my well being

I am 79 and active in competitive basketball even with both knees and hips replaced. My entire lumbar spine is fused as well as my C3,4,5. I am a very active 79 year old thanks to Dr David Kloth.

After more than a few bouts of debilitating pain due to my spinal damage and conditions, I have learned that Opioids have clear and definite clinical value. I have learned how to successfully wean down from some very strong medicines. However, the way these drugs are prescribed seems totally and flawed and needs complete review. Recently it seems to have evolved that doctors are now scared to prescribe needed medicine, and people often suffer. This results in avoidable pain and suffering which results in complete loss of productivity and drives negative thoughts and behaviors. The "pain scale" is such a non scientific and fatally flawed thing to follow that it is difficult to understand how a group of scientists abide by such a pathetic thing to prescribe the strongest of medicines. How about adding a simple quantifying element to that scale just as a start. I have been hospitalized and in great pain manged with opiods and muscle relaxers. There were more than a few times during my stay were I suffered very significantly - I learned how to answer the questions right. I could barely speak at the time, shuddering and shivering in pain with my blood pressure through the roof and I've had a previous stroke. Ridiculous. Please form a panel able to have real conversations about people who do very well with proper pain management. Front line docs need some real education and proper Scientific and Quantified guidance to follow. Hopefully this may limit some liability and allow docs to actually help people with chronic pain continue to function and be productive while possibly easily avoiding opioid dependence at the same time if it is done well.

Pain management is crucial to those of us who are in constant pain. We suffer pain even if we walk with smiles on. Dr Kloth without a doubt has been able to keep me functioning. Without his management I really would be in a vegetative state... I fully support him and NANS in providing chronic pain sufferers alternatives for a better quality of life.

Pain management is essential for me as surgery is not recommended for my spine condition because the risk is greater than the benefit. Without Dr. Kloth's alternative procedures I would not be able to walk without excruciating pain. I support Dr Kloth and NANS.

It’s a crime what i pay for insurance and the best therapies for me are NOT covered And I Am Forced to buy insurance

I'm not one to wish pain on anybody, but if these folks who are arbiters of what-is-what medically were to have had the pain I did just for one night - that's all I say, one night -- they would quickly address these shortcomings.

For us patients with very serious conditions, we have found that just repeated surgeries is not sufficient. Please consider our situation of very real, very strong, chronic pain - where we cannot get through the day.

I support Dr. David Kloth and NANS. Their efforts to provide alternative pain management procedures while trying to reduce a patient’s need for opioid medications is responsible medicine. It is also imperative however that without these alternative procedures the reduction of opioids is detrimental to the well being of thousands of law abiding patients.

I have been seeing Dr. Kloth for a long time. After surgery I have been prescribed Muscle relaxers and oxycodone. This works for me and I am able to live a normal life.