03-28-2019, 05:55 AM
So in another chronic pain post I briefly shared my experience with the way the Veterans Admjnistration has totally blindsided many many old vets and removed their pain meds completely with no proper taper schedule or real offeringnof help for the patients.
So to expand on that topic without getting to long and drawn out here’s he details...100% disabled Vietnam veteran was on high dose of opiate pain killers since the 70’s.. this is roughly how it went, from the point of overprescribing to total cut...after spending many years in various va hospitals recovering from injuries the patient did an inpatient rehab to kick a Demerol addiction caused by the massive and lengthy trauma recovery...after5 months of that everything was under control and was prescribed various small amounts of painkillers to try and control the pain, fast forward to the early 90’s and suicide is looking to be the only option for this particular veteran as he is totally unable to do much of anything because the dr.s are only prescribing 100 5mg pills a month, which after many years doesn’t do the trick, so every 24 hrs off to the er to get the 10 take home pills they would give...
The dr suggested the new “pain clinic” at the VA, well when the nurse practitioner walked in she immediately knew the my dad was suicidal and totally spent and defeated by the pain and poor quality of
Life because of no pain coverage...welp the appointment went well and she offered to go upstairs and talk with the shrink and dad onwhich he refused, then she handed hj. The prescriptions ..1200 5mg oxycodone 60 80mg OxyContin 90 40mg OxyContin and 90 20mg oxycontins.. my dad flipped because he thought she was messing with him, she sat there and listened to the dipping and said “you want the scripts or no”. This was the prescription every month (actually 28 days spit into two 14 day cycles) for a very long time, it literally saved his life, and allowed him to continue functioning like a normal civilian without injuries. As time went on he was going through the pills faster and faster and buying them from other veterans that didn’t use their scripts, he needed them they gave him his life back and it was a great one, you would never have guessed he was so reliant unless you were directly inside the family, and even then there was never any of the sensationalized things you typically see if an addict in the movies.. he was kind and generous and loving, active and happy overall, now I’m not sure if you can understand what that amount of pills is on a monthly basisC but it’s realy mind blowing, there was literally never one nod or even the slightest indication of being “high” on these pills and we are taking massive doses, anyhow this was all through the 90’s and 2000 right up until about 2 years ago when thenurse practioner started saying how the va is getting ready to cut meds and being genuinely concerned about the patients.
Now this NP was great, she would fill early she would always have his back and at this point in an opiate addiction withdrawals are killer and it’s no fun. Finally the NP said we have to start reducing the pills because the va is cracking down and you really need to be ready . So over the next 36 months she was able to get the scripts down to 600 5mg and 90 80’s 120 20’s no 40’s . This was a slow and difficult process but she helped him and he did it. Well cut to this December and the new head of the VA Is totally Anti opiate And after the first of the year plans to reduce all scripts to 100pills max. The NP understood that was not realistic but her hands were tied so she and two otherpain center employees walked out. As of February They had dad down to 3 15mg roxicodne per day, so they literally went from a reasonable and compassionate taper from 1200 to 600 to 3 15mg pills a day. He had some of the toughest weeks I can remember and the dr had the nerve to say well it’s not my fault that you got blown up, he absolutely refused to write anymore pills or follow a reasonable taper schedule , although after 50 years of narcotic pain killers there is no reasonable taper not only does the pain not go away with time, but after so long on pills your tolerance to pain gets weaker. So we were to a point where I’m literally calling three times a day and making arrangements to move home to make sure there is some support..I mean he always said he wanted to be dea by 60 and now we are 70 and the VA is literally killing these guys with this kinda of anti opiate sentiment.! He finally came to terms and wrote off the VA with such bitter hatred that I can completely understand, they created this problem go from 100 pills to these kind of levels overnights then do the same on the way back down, it is a joke, anyhow I convinced him to just try subs to atleast keep him from withdrawls.’ But it’s does nothing for pain and we are not out of the woods.
SO as of today the rehab dr is only prescribing 2 8mg subs per day 1/4 of a film every few hours, which I find very strange, so my question is how does one know what the proper dose should be ,’we are talking coming off a 50 year opiate addiction with 30+ years of high doses. We are still working on a plan to get him back to being able to move and off the rocker,have a little bit of life to enjoy but in the mean time he isn’t withdrawing hard but life has essentially been taken away. And no one will ever know how the VA is operating and treating these guys, because eventually they will just kill themselves and the story will never be told and quite frankly unless you’ve ever been there or seen it you really wouldn’t understand a serious dr prescribed opiate addiction and withdrawal when the leader says we made a mistake getting these guys hooked now we are fixing it,,,,fix it with the new guys don’t kill the 70+year old end of life vets that have never sold a single pill or went to street heroin, let them die in peace.
I apolologize for the misspelling and formatting and would get deeper into this story and organize it a bit better but I’m on mobile and my phone is lagging so hard it’s impossible to type this efficiently.
Tldr:how to get dosage of bupe to effective handle long term opiate addiction , mainly how to get a dr to understand the real level of addiction involved.
So to expand on that topic without getting to long and drawn out here’s he details...100% disabled Vietnam veteran was on high dose of opiate pain killers since the 70’s.. this is roughly how it went, from the point of overprescribing to total cut...after spending many years in various va hospitals recovering from injuries the patient did an inpatient rehab to kick a Demerol addiction caused by the massive and lengthy trauma recovery...after5 months of that everything was under control and was prescribed various small amounts of painkillers to try and control the pain, fast forward to the early 90’s and suicide is looking to be the only option for this particular veteran as he is totally unable to do much of anything because the dr.s are only prescribing 100 5mg pills a month, which after many years doesn’t do the trick, so every 24 hrs off to the er to get the 10 take home pills they would give...
The dr suggested the new “pain clinic” at the VA, well when the nurse practitioner walked in she immediately knew the my dad was suicidal and totally spent and defeated by the pain and poor quality of
Life because of no pain coverage...welp the appointment went well and she offered to go upstairs and talk with the shrink and dad onwhich he refused, then she handed hj. The prescriptions ..1200 5mg oxycodone 60 80mg OxyContin 90 40mg OxyContin and 90 20mg oxycontins.. my dad flipped because he thought she was messing with him, she sat there and listened to the dipping and said “you want the scripts or no”. This was the prescription every month (actually 28 days spit into two 14 day cycles) for a very long time, it literally saved his life, and allowed him to continue functioning like a normal civilian without injuries. As time went on he was going through the pills faster and faster and buying them from other veterans that didn’t use their scripts, he needed them they gave him his life back and it was a great one, you would never have guessed he was so reliant unless you were directly inside the family, and even then there was never any of the sensationalized things you typically see if an addict in the movies.. he was kind and generous and loving, active and happy overall, now I’m not sure if you can understand what that amount of pills is on a monthly basisC but it’s realy mind blowing, there was literally never one nod or even the slightest indication of being “high” on these pills and we are taking massive doses, anyhow this was all through the 90’s and 2000 right up until about 2 years ago when thenurse practioner started saying how the va is getting ready to cut meds and being genuinely concerned about the patients.
Now this NP was great, she would fill early she would always have his back and at this point in an opiate addiction withdrawals are killer and it’s no fun. Finally the NP said we have to start reducing the pills because the va is cracking down and you really need to be ready . So over the next 36 months she was able to get the scripts down to 600 5mg and 90 80’s 120 20’s no 40’s . This was a slow and difficult process but she helped him and he did it. Well cut to this December and the new head of the VA Is totally Anti opiate And after the first of the year plans to reduce all scripts to 100pills max. The NP understood that was not realistic but her hands were tied so she and two otherpain center employees walked out. As of February They had dad down to 3 15mg roxicodne per day, so they literally went from a reasonable and compassionate taper from 1200 to 600 to 3 15mg pills a day. He had some of the toughest weeks I can remember and the dr had the nerve to say well it’s not my fault that you got blown up, he absolutely refused to write anymore pills or follow a reasonable taper schedule , although after 50 years of narcotic pain killers there is no reasonable taper not only does the pain not go away with time, but after so long on pills your tolerance to pain gets weaker. So we were to a point where I’m literally calling three times a day and making arrangements to move home to make sure there is some support..I mean he always said he wanted to be dea by 60 and now we are 70 and the VA is literally killing these guys with this kinda of anti opiate sentiment.! He finally came to terms and wrote off the VA with such bitter hatred that I can completely understand, they created this problem go from 100 pills to these kind of levels overnights then do the same on the way back down, it is a joke, anyhow I convinced him to just try subs to atleast keep him from withdrawls.’ But it’s does nothing for pain and we are not out of the woods.
SO as of today the rehab dr is only prescribing 2 8mg subs per day 1/4 of a film every few hours, which I find very strange, so my question is how does one know what the proper dose should be ,’we are talking coming off a 50 year opiate addiction with 30+ years of high doses. We are still working on a plan to get him back to being able to move and off the rocker,have a little bit of life to enjoy but in the mean time he isn’t withdrawing hard but life has essentially been taken away. And no one will ever know how the VA is operating and treating these guys, because eventually they will just kill themselves and the story will never be told and quite frankly unless you’ve ever been there or seen it you really wouldn’t understand a serious dr prescribed opiate addiction and withdrawal when the leader says we made a mistake getting these guys hooked now we are fixing it,,,,fix it with the new guys don’t kill the 70+year old end of life vets that have never sold a single pill or went to street heroin, let them die in peace.
I apolologize for the misspelling and formatting and would get deeper into this story and organize it a bit better but I’m on mobile and my phone is lagging so hard it’s impossible to type this efficiently.
Tldr:how to get dosage of bupe to effective handle long term opiate addiction , mainly how to get a dr to understand the real level of addiction involved.