Opioids Saved My Life
We are fighting a war against opioids. We are told it’s an epidemic. It’s so bad people all around us are dying. I don't know any, but they say they are. It must be true. It's been printed. They wouldn't print lies, would they?
What will the cost be if we win this war, and more, could someone please explain what “winning” looks like? I fear my circumstance will make winning this war more a death sentence and less a victory.
Is it really this serious? Should I feel this strongly? Here is some background information:
When I was close to age 13(+/-) a couple of my friends and I were practicing a few high jumping techniques. We were trying to teach each other what was called the "Fosbury Flop." Go check YouTube about it. Not being a stellar athlete, I did it wrong, missing the mat and landing on my head. Something strange happened, but I was afraid to tell my parents. I had headaches, neck pain, and tingling in my hands, upper back and forearms--more on the right side than the left. I didn’t think anything horrible happened because I was able to function, after laying on the ground for a while.
A few years later, about aged 17, I worked for several days in the Henry Mountains of Southern Utah pulling 4-inch (10.16 cm) irrigation pipe down a small canyon from a very cold spring to a sluice to find gold. At one point, the 40 foot (12.19 m) length of pipe I had just placed was about 20 feet (6.1 m) up in a tall pine tree. As at every other point, the frigid water was coming out of the end. Rather than climbing back down the way I'd come up and get soaked, I opted to work my way to the end of a branch which joined a 10-inch wide ledge and move towards a small rock slide. However, there was a small bush growing out of the side of the cliff between the tree and the slide I meant to reach, so I could just climb a little ways down to the pathway we’d cut in the side of the canyon.
To stay balanced as I stepped over the bush I grabbed hold of the rock face of the cliff above me. A piece of the cliff broke off, landing on my chest. Judging by its dimensions, it must have weighed over 80 pounds (36.29 kg). I fell backwards as I pushed the rock off my chest to the side, cutting my forearm, then I landed on my head. Just before that first “hit” I’d wrapped my arms over the top of my head which likely saved my life. I landed in large rocks. Hard. I bounced and landed on my feet, the large rock landing on one. It cut a 2-inch slice in my boot on the top of my foot. It didn't injure my foot, amazingly, but did bruise my shin. I then started rolling and as I saw the path come closer, I had the thought to put my leg out to stop rolling. That kept me from reaching the end of the rock slide and falling the remainder of the 200 feet (60.96 m) to the bottom of the canyon. It was a sheer cliff with a few trees growing out of the face. I could not have survived had I fallen over the edge.
The result of the jumping and cliff incidents was that the structure of my neck was changed. It was altered so my neck bends the wrong way between C-1 and C-2 (see figure 1).
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| Figure 1 - A normal neck with my neck on the right Aged 61 at the time of this X-ray |
To alleviate what has become near crippling pain I take two medications; one for nerve pain and an opioid for joint and bone pain. Without them I feel like curling into the fetal position and crying. I can’t function normally. It’s so painful that depression is a way of life, unless I can take the medication.
I’ve had these meds, or very similar as they lose effectiveness every 20-30 months (rinse, repeat), for the past 8 or 10 years. In the beginning I took 4 - 2 nerve meds and 2 opioids. I've tried pain clinics, but found they only want to keep you on the meds, not find a solution. I'm back with my Primary Care Physician, who is a wonderful doctor who I fear is beginning to think about retirement. I have no idea who I'll move to at that time. Let's hope he never retires. He just retired from the National Guard last year. He's still young. Well, at least younger than me.
Opioids let me feel well enough to hold a job, and do well. Needless to say (so why am I saying it), I'm not doing physical labor. Not at all. I work, as my Mother would say, “doing computer stuff” and am productive and able to function more or less normally for the other parts of my life -- yard work, fixing things around the house, etc. There are caveats, as mentioned above.
If you have wondered, no, I don’t get high. There's never a buzz. I feel almost nothing, especially pain. That’s the goal. I have no noticeable impairment at all. My reflexes are still excellent -- above average. For instance, I occasionally drop a contact lens while putting them in. I can catch the lens before it gets to my waist. If I drop the eye drop lid in the sink, I always grab it on the first bounce. Because it's larger and harder to lose than the contact, I don't care if it hits. Lenses are too easily lost, so I don't want to take a chance.
Over the years I’ve been able to reduce the medication to a minimum effective dose but still function. The drawback to that? I’m in pain all the time.
Thankfully it’s not debilitating. It reminds me to be careful. Don’t run down stairs which cause the joints unnecessary stress. Don’t jump off the porch when playing with my grandchildren. Be careful when using tools--it doesn’t take much to tweak joints, causing a lot of pain later in the day which can cause sleeplessness. I’ve learned to pace myself and be careful so the meds will continue to be as effective as possible. One of the worst things is sleeping in the wrong position. I can wake with neck pains that stay all day and aren't touched by the meds.
Through my experience, I now categorize pain using the following scale:
- Can be ignored
- Starting to affect me
- A distraction
- Keeping me from concentrating and being fully functional
- Overwhelming and can't be ignored
- Totally debilitating
Sleep can sometimes be hard. Some nights, if I can’t get to bed before my last dose wears off I can expect to be awake most of the night until sleep becomes overpowering. Sometimes there is light in the Eastern skies by the time sleep wins.
Because of early legislative “wins” in the war on opioids there is absolutely no leeway for using secondary meds to cover the gaps when I miss a dose. It’s fairly common knowledge that missing a dose isn’t as easily recovered from as just taking the next dose. It can take as many as 20 to 30 hours to get pain back under control. Unfortunately skipping doses is as easy as being in a noisy environment and not hearing the application I use on my phone, or driving and not being able to postpone the alarm, or any number of other issues.
I won’t take sleeping pills, except very rarely. A prescription of 12 tablets of a mild sleep aid typically will last over a year. The fog the next day isn’t worth it, so I'll use it on weekends if I choose to use it at all. The same issue happens with anti-histamine use. They all cause drowsiness, so they make me artificially tired, and still in pain, and sleep doesn’t come anyway.
So what’s my point in writing this?
To encourage those who draft legislation to please keep people like me in mind. Please balance the law. Don’t let people like me become casualties in the war against opioids.
If you think this might help your legislators, please feel free to pass it on, retaining all author information. I retain all rights to this post.
And I am still Karl
