Help Protect Chronic Pain Patients

You are killing pain patients!

I think this is disgraceful punishing people who are in pain and depend on their pain medication to get through their days. You are absolutely punishing the wrong people! The people who are abusing pain medication are drug addicts not chronic pain patients who go to their doctors! Do not pass this please. Thousands then millions of people will suffer for no reason. Thank You, Jacqueline Alexander

Can we see any reasoning in making 50,000,000 in our nation have chronic debilitating pain. Not a smart move to take their meds away. You realize even if we can no longer work , we can and do vote!

Have cancer so far so good but I always have to worry about being taken off pain meds

We as chronic pain patients have endured enough criticism. It's time to treat all pain patients as the adults that we are and not drug seekers or addicts. Enough is enough. Let us live our life in the fullest not bedridden or homebound!!

I have had 2 low back surgeries, a shattered left foot reconstruction, left shoulder reconstruction surgery, developed degenerative disc disease from S1 through L5 as well as degenerative hips. In 2016, I had left shoulder surgery again due to a torn tendon and ligament, as well as 6 tears in my rotator cuff. Most recently, my latest MRI revealed that my C5, C6, C7 vertabrae have inexplicably fused together (no prior neck injury or surgeries), and the spinal cord opening has grown narrower, compressing my spinal cord from the neck down, affecting everything. In June 2017, I had surgery through the front of my neck which involved disc removal and synthetic bone implant at all 3 affected levels to try and open the spinal canal and relieve the compression on my spinal cord, with no improvement. My doctor now wants to perform surgery through the back of my neck, as that is where the largest area of spinal compression is located, but it is also the most risky. I asked him what the odds were that it would at least elevate part of the pain, and he said that at best, 50/50 chance of improvement, but without surgery soon (he said within about a 90 day window), that there is a 100 percent chance it will not improve, and probably worsen. I agree, because my arms, legs, and trunk have recently (within the last few months) begun accelerated atrophy. I have also developed what all my doctors believe to be fibromyalgia, as it hurts and burns, like I sat to close to the homecoming bonfire for way, way to long, without clothing. Unfortunately, Oregon Medicaid does not provide any care to fibro patients, but thankfully, due to my other chronic pain issues, I have my Oxycodone and Gabapentin prescriptions. Take those away, and I am the next death on our politicians hands. I know what it feels like to go for just an hour or two longer than I should have without pain management. This all began in 1998, so I've had 20 years to try all, and I do mean all alternative therapies except accu

I'm a pain patient who was cut off of pain medication after being stable for 15 yrs. I'm raising a 21yr old son w/autism, at home. I can't physically take care of him & may have to put him in a group home! Opiates gave me a productive life, after trying EVERYTHING ELSE! I'm allergic to NSAIDs & sulpha drugs, too many side effects to list from the other drugs I've tried.

I'm one that lives with this

I'm one thats living cause of this!

TORTURE, TORTURE, TORTURE. STOP THIS MADNESS NOW. PEOPLE NEED THESE MEDS FOR QUALITY OF LIFE

Major back and neck vertebrae are bad two knees need to be done and both shoulders I also have lupus and Lyme diease

Let chronic pain patients decide their course of treatment along with their doctor. Not the insurance company and not the government.

Chronic pain patients ought to keep pain meds plus the active therapy modes they can handle. Some old, white man is deciding for others. The rest of us should reserve the right to make his decisions...

Instead of cheap, effective medication, patients will be forced to use extremely expensive treatments that do not work for chronic pain? Why doesn't anyone question this? What do disabled people have to do with street fentanyl overdoses?

Alternative methods add to the already copays and deductabled Medicaid and Medicare patients. This in itself is totally unexceptable. I myself am a chronic pain patient also my 77 year old father who can't afford to pay for alternative l r t alone the copays and deductabled attached to every appt, test besides paying for a b, c, and d out of his SS check. Traveling foe is impossible except for once a month as I live the jungle off grid in Hawaii as I'm sure many chronic pain patients in Oregon live in remote rural areas and can't afford to travel to several alternative appts a week plus copays especially when they don't work as well as the opiates. Many people are feeling hopeless and will have to resolve to their own methods of ridding themselves of pain including suicide. Sincerely, Robin Lindahl

I am a 23+ year chronic pain patient who has gone through every possible program available including a 6 week functional rehabilitation program with a Stanford doctor in Palo Alto, Ca. That program greatly improved my life but I still have to take pain medications. WIthout them I have no possibility for a life where I'm able to help myself help others, something I've done most of my life, I am a medically retired Fire Captain who with the help of doctors who know and understand the benefits of properly prescribed and properly used pain medications gives me the chance to lead a rewarding lifestyle helping others. Don't take away the medications that help people live a functional life, you wouldn't take away insulin from a diabetic person or medications bipolar people use, our pain medications are needed just as much as a diabetic or bipolar person needs their medications. Stand up to those people who think they are helping us by taking away the medications we need to live.

Unless you experience significant chronic pain, YOU AND YOUR MEDICAL ADVISORS cannot understand the huge impact it has on one's life. Life in pain is not a life. Chronic pain suffers have nothing to do with the over hyped "opioid epidemic". We be a vested interest in keeping those legitimate medications available to all who need relief. Best Regards Steve Schott

Even social animals take care of each other and do not abandon the ill and injured.

I truly hope the government does not get away with this. I fully support the Petition. I to am a Chronic Pain Suffer for many years now, only thing that helps me is pain medication. We are not this way by choice, but because we are in sever chronic pain daily and nightly, with no let up. That's why we take pain medication and for No other reason. We deserve to have a life to. I have long forgotten what a normal day or night use to be like with no pain or at least controled to where I can actually fell like getting up and doing something, anything beats having no choice but to lay around all the time and feeling totally useless and a burden on your love ones. Much love to all chronic pain suffer's like me out there.

I have MS and have been on Opioids for seven years. I was forced off by a rookie doctor before finding a new doctor willing to treat me. The ensuing four months that I was off my medication were the worst four months of my life. I seriously considered suicide, not because I actually wish to die, but simply because the pain was unbearable. Alternative therapies are wonderful for many things and I absolutely support them, but they certainly would not be adequate for a disease such as MS. Nor would they be helpful for many other conditions. Opioids work when used correctly and I am proof of that. I shouldn't have to suffer or be made to feel like a criminal. I didn't ask for this disease, and others who are sick didn't either.