We Are Looking For A Few Good Veterans, To Join Our Mission To Prevent Suicide

Thanks for weighing in

Thanks for weighing in

Thanks for weighting in

I totally agree, but the work has just begun. Fortunately, it seems that the framework is there, especially regarding the VA in particular, but the policies are far from taking advantage of those available systems that have been in place for quite some time now. I am in the middle of a very long move and plan on writing about this in detail once fully settled into our new home.

Sadly, I uncovered some very concerning details on how the VA has been “treating” chronic pain. They themselves have long acknowledged the symbiotic nature between physical and emotional pain, but they are using a guise of safety to greatly under-prescribe if not outright misclassify veterans to treat pain with the ‘wrong’ drugs altogether, e.g. using those that have been long used to treat addiction when no proof of addiction ever existed with those veterans! I myself almost got “sent to the ER” for being misunderstood as I explained my “breaking point” meant that I don’t plan on hurting myself, but am requesting a DNR! All because my pain was so under-treated that I was only leaving my home once every few months and barely able to get out of bed! I had no quality of life, although I proved that my history shows that it could be fairly easily resolved. They still wouldn’t change my prescriptions back to those promised to me in writing, yet he didn’t even hesitate to say okay to my DNR request!

I told them that their “safer alternatives” are a “load of political B.S.” as they are absolutely adding to the veteran suicide rate, probably at an astronomical expense of precious veteran lives, and “what could be any more safer than preventing that?!” Well, being enrolled in VA Healthcare for > 15 years came with some privileges as certain providers shared with me just how deep the “rabbit hole” goes with many telling me things “off the record,” some “on the record,” but nearly all supported me when I told them the information that went into complaints to the various medical boards in order to, at the very least, ensure those providers central to these ethical violations will be noted on their licensing records.

That said, we are getting there, but we have a long and uphill fight to really consider it a win! There’s more to come soon and copies of this clear as day information are already in my medical record along with the addendums that I had permanently included to accompany it. Now, we just need to find who else was not as fortunate as I, and “broke” before someone addressed their chronic pain at the VA. I need to hear specifically from families that could say that such and such veterans took their own lives as a direct result of the VA claiming that they were more “safely” handling their chronic pain. It will take hard numbers over qualitative analysis to show a true representation. My goals are to figure out if this issue is a national one or regional, get hard numbers, and invoke real change through factual information showing how counterintuitive these claims of “safe” handling of pain really are. I never thought the VA that I’ve come to trust would play so dirty and honestly don’t even know why exactly, my guess is to keep the suicide rate linked to their care at an absolute minimum, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some sort of financial incentive as they are so common within the pharmaceutical industry. Please do follow along!