#like again its a controlled substance i cannot do refills over the phone BUT LIKE

[oetscop]

please why was the lady i just talked to at planned parenthood so not nice to me what da hell...i just want my boy goo PLEASE

[ravenfirethief]

Apologies To Everyone I RP With

For the last three weeks, I have been experiencing what many people with chronic pain do on a regular basis: DEA Hell.

To start with, I use Lyrica to manage my neuropathic pain (my neuropathy is most likely caused by over 200 hours of exposure to CS as a chemical warfare defense trainer in the USAF, as well as briefly taking simvastatin - a drug which has neuropathy as one of its documented adverse effects). You would think that a medication which is designed to treat epilepsy and neuropathy, and which is NOT a narcotic, would be readily available, but NOOOO. The DEA has classified it as a controlled substance, at the same level as medications with small amounts of codeine, like codeine-based cough syrups. On top of that, the US Health Department mandates that the doctor must electronically prescribe whenever not prohibited by law, or pay a fine for violating the E-Script rules.

The problem is, even though IN THEORY it's possible to prescribe Lyrica electronically, IN PRACTICE, it doesn't work. So for TWO WEEKS my doctor and my pharmacy tried to make the E-Script system work to electronically prescribe my Lyrica, while I kept getting worse and worse and worse.

To make matters worse, I have to take a long-acting narcotic on a daily basis to manage my baseline pain. In my case, it's an extended release version of oxymorphone. Once again, the DEA interferes with my doctor and pharmacy, by classifying it at the same level as amphetamines and cocaine. That means that it is illegal to refill the prescription, and that the doctor must write out each month's prescription by hand, as a brand new prescription. On top of that, both the DEA and the State of Florida have announced their intention to reduce the number of people on ANY narcotics by 20%, and have put into place rules that make it impossible for a pharmacy to keep any in stock. When you add that to the fact that the patient cannot take the prescription to the pharmacy until, AT THE EARLIEST, two days before their current supply runs out, it means that every month the patient is sweating over whether the pharmacy will be able to order the medication from the manufacturer and get it delivered in time to prevent a gap in coverage.

This month (as has happened a number of times in the past) the pharmacy wasn't able to. I was not able to get a new supply until four days after my previous supply ran out.

What does this mean practically? Well, let's start with the neuropathy. In my case, I don't have numbness. That would be an improvement over what I do have. What I have instead is a list of experiences:

Burning pain. Specifically, my hands, wrists, and forearms feel as if I dipped them in JP-4 and set it on fire. (I specify JP-4 because not only is it flammable, it's also so corrosive that aircraft that used it had to have any parts exposed to it replaced every 12 to 18 months because of the damage it caused.)

Nerve "tingling". You know that "pins and needles" feeling you get when you've pinched off circulation to an arm or a leg until it goes numb, and the blood starts flowing again? Now, imagine that continuously sweeping over your body in waves powerful enough to take away your ability to stand or do things without falling or accidentally knocking things over.

Spasms. The doctors call it Restless Legs Syndrome, but what they don't tell you is that it affects your whole body, not just your legs. Imagine that, on top of the pins and needles sensation I already described, you feel as if your muscles are crawling under your skin, and the only way to make  that feeling stop is to let the part that feels that way jerk on its own, or to get up  and pace, in hopes that if you just move enough, you'll work out whatever's causing that feeling without kicking or punching your partner, or knocking over things on your desk. That's what doctors don't tell you is the reality of RLS. It happens ANY time you relax or are distracted by something that causes your mind to focus away from your body, like spreadsheets or business phone calls, or a good TV show or book. In fact, I first started having symptoms of RLS when I was still working, and was nearly fired several times for pacing in my cubical while on a phone call, because the symptoms made it impossible to sit.

On top of the neuropathy, there's the chronic pain. When I am not on my daily oxymorphone regime, I experience whole-body pain (also most likely thanks to that CS exposure in the Air Force) that ranks, on this standard numeric pain scale at an 8 on a good day, a 9 on a bad day. WITH my daily oxymorphone, I can keep my pain at a 6, with it bouncing up to a 7 after activities like a trip to the grocery store or Walmart. It's just my daily life. I've learned to live with it.

So, when I was without both Lyrica and oxymorphone for four days, after being without Lyrica for 2 weeks. I discovered that, even with my baseline pain hovering between 8 and 9, THE NEUROPATHY IS WORSE. I can endure pain - even pain that's so bad I'm curled up in bed, whimpering, unable even to wipe my own butt because it hurts too much. But the burning, the waves of tingling, the spasms? If I had to deal with those every day, I think they would make me insane.

Anyway, that's all background to apologize for being incommunicado for as long as I have been. I'm still not back to the level I was at before the medication problems, but at least I can slowly respond to people. Emphasis on slowly. I think I have about enough brain to hunt murlocs, and not much more.