Help Protect Chronic Pain Patients

My DIL has chronic pain 24/7 from Ehlors-Danlos Syndrome. She NEVER has a good day, she exists while my son works and comes home every night to care for her and their son.

I have lived with chronic pain for 30+ yearss, I will be 60 in a few days. I suffer with degenerative joint disease of the cervical spine, displaced shoulder with torn bicep, and chronic widespread pain disease. I have been tapered back to one third of the Opiod s I've been on for many years, and in doing so I have lost my independence, and have almost no quality of life! Tapering is not the answe, I have become very depressed and contemplated suicide many times...you must come up with better solutions keeping the patients in mind! Thank You

This is not the State's choice. This is a medical choice and politics has no place between a Doc & their patients. I've been in chronic pain since I went on Disability 20 years ago. I have gotten worse and my pain relief has gotten less. This is all about the money...force pain patients to buy pot so the State gets tax money. Unacceptable

Living with chronic pain is no way to live.

The Doctor has taken my pain meds from me 4 months ago. I now have no quality of life. We pain pts. are not the cause of the problem, we take them to live, not for pleasure. We need help.

I have CRPS/RSD

I have chronic pain, I'm not an addict,my pain meds keep up and able to spend time with my family. Without them I would be in a wheelchair with out any kind of life.

The patient/doctor relationship should be sacred. Patients are better suited to assess the risks vs benefits of any therapy than the government. I want the government out of my medical decisions. Focus on street addicts and mental health services for the homeless, instead of stigmatizing chronic pain patients who are adequately supervised by their physicians.

There are people like me who cannot make their lives tolerable through means other than opioid analgesics. Individuals with conditions just as painful as cancer if not more so that cannot survive what is being proposed they be put through. It is wrong to destroy their lives in such a manner.

Please don't punish CPP because there are those that are abusing opiates that are NOT. Stop punishing us for a chronic medical condition we have. Chronic pain patients should never be put in the same category as addicts!

I live in daily agony because any dr. I see is too scared of the government to give me the opioid treatment that was so effective. I have no life now, except for spending most of the day lying around my house. I went on two vacation trips, during which I could no longer walk for any amount of time. I couldn't climb, I couldn't swim. I sat by while watching everybody else enjoying themselves. These trips were a total waste of time and money! My now-retired physician trusted me for the mature adult that I am, and gave me the option of up to 30 mg of Oxcodone per day. I kept a written log of my daily dosages-I averaged 15 mg a day. On those days I needed more, I made sure to plan my next few days with less strenuous activities, so I could get by on a lower dosage. Just 30 mg/day--and I usually got by on less. I've tried the other treatments--non-opioid meds, PT, accupuncture--NOTHING BUT THE OPIOID WORKS! I HAVE NO LIFE NOW, AND NOT A DAY GOES BY THAT I WISH I WERE DEAD. If I die, it won't be from an overdose of opioids--it will be at my own hand because I've been crippled by these laws!

What you are attempting to do in Oregon is criminal. Do you NOT understand how many older folks we have in this state that have been on pain medication for PAIN and QUALITY OF LIFE? The suicide rate will skyrocket. But I am guessing that you just do not care enough for those that suffer from Intractable pain on a daily basis. I am embarrassed to say that I live here. EVERYONE, including YOU, are just one accident or injury away from being in a similar position. I truly hope you think about the human factor here, and rethink about what decisions you are making.

2011 was surgery. After 7 years living with A TKR that the Manufacture lied to the FDA about the Creamic Coating on the Aesculap Columbia knee implant I feel like a twisted donut. I get 4 hours a sleep per night. I am tried of living in cronic pain. I guess 4000 mg of Tyenol a day will put me in my grave sooner with liver damage!

I am a retired medical physician and I find this proposal to be extremely frightening. For years now third party payers and government regulations have been encroaching on the physician-patient relationship, but this is rediculous. Why even offer medical training or licensing if it is really the state that knows what is best for you and me? I think it the medical provider has a huge responsibility to his/her patient and should be able to offer the person what is the best option for them based on the circumstances. If long term pain medication truly improve the quality of the patient's life and the patient demonstrates no evidence of abuse or diversion and other means have been tried and failed it should be allowed and covered. The state needs to let physicians do what they were trained to do.

I am a retired medical physician and I find this proposal to be extremely frightening. For years now third party payers and government regulations have been encroaching on the physician-patient relationship, but this is rediculous. Why even offer medical training or licensing if it is really the state that knows what is best for you and me? I think it the medical provider has a huge responsibility to his/her patient and should be able to offer the person what is the best option for them based on the circumstances. If long term pain medication truly improve the quality of the patient's life and the patient demonstrates no evidence of abuse or diversion and other means have been tried and failed it should be allowed and covered. The state needs to let physicians do what they were trained to do.

As an intractable pain patient and patient advocate, this proposal would cause irreparable damage to the chronic pain community, and also give the impression that the poor don't deserve pain relief. The fact that Oregon Medicaid does not recognize fibromyalgia as a disease baffles me - I was diagnosed in 1999! That decision, to not recognize fibromyalgia, has left your constituents with fibromyalgia without additional therapies that could help them (i.e. gabapentin, pregabalin, chiropractic, trigger point injections, etc.) and left them with only opiates to try to control their pain. Now you want to take the opiates away and let them use alternative therapies. Fibromyalgia is not an all-or-nothing disease, and it often takes a combination of opiates and additional therapies to bring any relief to the patient. Also, it would take many more than 30 appointments per calendar year with combined alternative therapies to do any good. Lastly, throwing all chronic pain patients under the bus, as you have in your proposal (not just those with fibromyalgia), and tapering them to 0 MME is cruel, inhumane, and goes against international patient rights as stated in the UN and the document attesting that the United States signed, and a violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

Be sure to allow doctors to make medical decisions, not unqualified politicians!

I have fibromyalga my whole body is in pain and tingling burning pain I also have low back pain and several kinds of arthritis, I'm am 66 years old I am not on medicade,but I beleave that they should have right to be treated as everyone else that has chronic pain,all you hear about is the opiate crisses.You never hear about the people who really need pain meds ,and that's what i call it meds ,I go to a pain clinic and I am monitored closely. I think that no matter who you are and what insurance you have should take care of people in pain.

After taking opioids for over 17 years, I would be required to IMAGINE I HAVE NO PAIN - that is what Mindful Meditation is. Just DECIDE you have no pain and it will MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR! Really? This sounds like good old fashioned 1880's snake oil, if you ask me.

We have diseases & injuries where opioid therapy is needed when prescribed by our doctors. The government should have no say in our treatments other than making sure ALL OPTIONS are available to patients.