DOCTORS DETERRED FROM PAIN TREATMENT

In our country, 75 million voters suffer from debilitating pain, and
most are either untreated or under treated due in part to bad press.

It costs America $100 billion yearly in sick time and disability
payments, not to mention worker's compensation, because pain is
inadequately treated.

Even soldiers that come home wounded after fighting against terrorism
are largely ignored after complaining that they are in more pain than
any human being should have to endure.

Because of this, I urge everyone to educate yourselves with the way
our government allows citizens to be labeled addicts because they need
opioids to treat pain. The media has painted patients taking oxycontin
for severe debilitating pain as addicts, and I, for one, was
prescribed oxycontin for most of the last four years.

It was the only medication that truly helped me have comfort and
relief.

I am fully disabled due to chronic, intractable pain every second of
every day. Opioidfobia is a myth; there is proof in studies that show
only 1-3 percent of patients prescribed narcotic medicines abuse them.

So why is the DEA arresting doctors and taking away their licenses to
practice and show compassion by relieving severe pain? I urge everyone
who suffers from chronic pain and those who love and care for them to
write their congressmen, senators, governor and even the president and
voice your outrage that severe chronic pain in America is an epidemic
that has been ignored for too long and needs to be addressed. To learn
the facts, go to www.painfoundation.org or www.paincare.org and then
firmly request a state or federal patient's bill of rights for
adequate treatment of pain. Get the DEA out of doctors' offices and
back to the streets fighting abuses of medications and illegal drugs
that are more prevalent than ever.

RICKI NICHOLS

Salisbury