Is this the treatment you expected when you raised your right hand?

2015-07-15T09:20:12-04:00

VA doctors freely handed out pain medications to veterans for years.
Then they stopped. The results have sometimes turned tragic.

Zach Williams came home to Minnesota with two Purple Hearts for his military service in Iraq. He also carried other lasting war wounds.

Back pain made it hard for him to stand. A brain injury from the explosions he endured made his moods erratic.

Williams eased the chronic pain with the help of narcotics prescribed for years by the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center. Then the VA made a stark and sudden shift: Instead of doling out pills to thousands of veterans like him — a policy facing mounting criticism — they began cutting dosages or canceling prescriptions, and, instead, began referring many vets to alternative therapies such as acupuncture and yoga.

At first, the change seemed to work: Worrisome signs of prescription drug addiction among a generation of vets appeared to ebb. But the well-intentioned change in prescription policy has come with a heavy cost. Vets cut off from their meds say they feel abandoned, left to endure crippling pain on their own, or to seek other sources of relief.

Or worse.

On Sept. 20, 2013, police were called to Williams’ Apple Valley home, donated to him by a veterans group grateful for his sacrifice. Williams, 35, lay dead in an upstairs bedroom. He had overdosed on a cocktail of pills obtained from a variety of doctors.

Authorities ruled his death an accident, officially “mixed drug toxicity.” Advocates for veterans and some treatment counselors angrily call it something else: the tragic result of the VA’s failure to provide support and services for vets in the wake of the national move away from prescription pain pills.

At the VA’s Medical Center in Minneapolis, for instance, there is one chiropractor on staff for the more than 90,000 patients it sees a year.

“The VA has been doing an awful job on this issue,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, chief medical officer for Phoenix House, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization that runs more than 130 treatment programs in nine states, including programs for veterans.

Before alternative therapies can work, Kolodny said, the VA needs to better tend to the addicts it has created.

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http://www.startribune.com/cut-off-veterans-struggle-to-live-with-va-s-new-painkiller-policy/311225761/

Cut off: Veterans struggle to live with VA’s new painkiller policy

VA doctors freely handed out pain medications to veterans for years. Then they stopped. The results have sometimes turned tragic.

Response by CPO Joseph Grant made Jul 15 at 2015 9:29 AM

2015-07-15T09:29:37-04:00

It's a problem across the whole country. I was in pain meds for 4 years before I "qualified" for a spinal stimulator. I still live with intense pain but I've pretty much given up on doctors. They're afraid to prescribe dosages that work or look at me and say you've got this stumulator so you aren't in pain.

I'm sure many other vets have had the same thing happen.

No, I didn't expect this when I joined but the unwritten promise to care for vets has been broken many times. We are a drain on the budget and therefore simply a liability that the bean counters wish would just go away b

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 15 at 2015 10:46 AM

2015-07-15T10:46:32-04:00

I knew this Sergeant through acquaintances and know more of the story. Let's just say it is not all the VA's fault.
My personal opinion is that there was a time when medication was the preferred treatment over psychiatric care, as it was much less costly, there were not enough Psychiatrists to go around, and medications had proven effective to help veterans cope with physical and mental pain. Then someone changed policy away from medication as the preferred option. Again I am guessing here, but the changes seem to indicate a central decision-maker driving this. The result was more veterans turning to alternative or self-medication plans and an uptick in suicides.

I hate that we have this problem. But I think the solutions lie among us, and not with the government.

Response by Maj Chris Weatherspoon made Jul 15 at 2015 11:40 AM

2015-07-15T11:40:00-04:00

The VA is not responsible for this shift in pain management. You can thank the DEA and medical professional organizations that have demonized the use of narcotics. In fact in the last several years, many medications have be added as controlled substances and many more have been further restricted. No by the VA but by the DEA. The strong arm of the government has taken DEA licenses from many docs for freely prescribing these medicines resulting in other providers fearful of repercussions from the DEA. Additionally the DEA has increased the licensure to around $800 per state for providers. This means less people can or will prescribe these meds and all pain management clinics want to do is procedures that they can get paid more money to complete.

So, its a real problem, but its a nationwide issue not just a VA issue

Response by LCDR Rabbah Rona Matlow made Jul 15 at 2015 12:28 PM

2015-07-15T12:28:28-04:00

This shift in Opioid prescriptions is not limited to the VA. The DEA and FDA are cracking down hard on doctors who write scrips for Opioids, because of a rash of deaths involving them. A High School friend of mine actually died on a stage while getting an award in San Francisco. She, like me, was a chronic pain sufferer. Unfortunately her very slight body couldn't handle the load and she went into respiratory arrest and died.

This shift has made things extremely difficult for those of us who suffer pain. I am deliberately ramping down off of Duragesic patches because of the side effects and the withdrawal has been horrible. Imagine being forced to stop cold because of these policy shifts.

This is another case of the Government having good ideas in theory, which when turned to practice, fall flat and kill people...

#NoIncumbentsIn2016

Response by 1LT David Moeglein made Jul 15 at 2015 1:38 PM

2015-07-15T13:38:23-04:00

I feel for many who are caught in the transition away from opioid and benzodiazapine medications. It is not an easy one to make without good information. I have chronic pain in my left shoulder and left heel, in addition to PTSD from childhood trauma. When I manage these issues well, I have no pain and the anxiety is manageable. When I forget to take the nutritional supplements that work, I am reminded that I have chronic pain and the anxiety goes through the roof. If we give the body what it needs, it is incredibly effective in handling pain and anxiety. I have learned to become the best expert that I can be on my body. I look to physicians as consultants. I let them help me, but I do not give them ultimate power over my body.

Response by SP5 Michael Cates made Jul 20 at 2015 10:04 PM

2015-07-20T22:04:12-04:00

OH SO SAD! THE LONGER I LIVE AND READ ABOUT WHAT THE VA IS DOING TO YOU US!!! I AM A COMBAT VETERAN AND NOW IT MEANS NOTHING WHEN I LANDED AT FT.LEWIS WASHINGTON AT 1AM SOME NIGHT OF THE WEEK IN AUGUST OF '68 THEY PROMISED ME MEDICAL BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I WORKED TO HARD WHEN I GOT BACK SO SORRY SP/5 CATES NO MEDICAL OF ANY SORT FOR YOU UNLESS YOU ARE DIEING! HMMMMMM!!! I THINK THAT THEY CAN KEEP IT!!! OH BUT THE POINT IS! I THINK THAT WE ARE A VERY GOOD TRIAL GROUP OF PEOPLE TO TRY OUT THINGS AND PROGRAMS ON LIKE OBAMACARE!!!!!

Response by SP5 Michael Cates made May 9 at 2019 12:57 AM

2019-05-09T00:57:32-04:00

Sense I wrote that comment 4yr's ago I have met a couple of Veterans that helped me get the help I needed from the VA! It was just finding the RIGHT DOOR to the VA! So GRATEFUL!!! Sp/5 Cates '67-'68 TET! Sense that last comment I have also returned to Vietnam!! YEP! My 2nd Tour 52yr's Later! Just to get ALL of what I had heard and seen on the maybe 5 Videos that have been produced by not sure WHO!! It seems that they were each time I watched SAID THE SAME THING EACH TIME!!! It was just a REPEAT which is disappointing because that would mean that we were considered Drunks or Addicts have brain dead! Well I got supper energized to GO BACK! But this time on my own nickel (well really it was my wife and older daughter Tori) that paid for it! I was actually able to see and confirm what I learned on my fact finding Tour 13 days by car and 5 different Guides just for my wife and I from Hanoi to Saigon! The Hell with that crap about Ho chi min City! The over the last couple of years I have done my own research talking to Boat People of All Ages and then the children of the Boat People (The First Refugees)! Seeing that my wife and I were the only ones on the Tour except when we connected with a small Tour Group from London (which was interesting in itself)! So much more to put in my Book! Later! Sp/5 Cates

Response by CSM Richard StCyr made May 9 at 2019 12:19 PM

2019-05-09T12:19:04-04:00

And that is why I only took and still take Motrin when they are pushing pills. That and I remember the old guys needing stronger and stronger pain meds as they got older and worse off due to developing tolerances to the meds.