OXYCONTIN: A MATTER OF SURVIVAL

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a second story previewing OxyContin abuse and use
prior to tomorrow's OxyContin Commission hearing at Framingham State College.

"Mary" remembers when the pain started.

"I was in grad school," said the Ashland resident, who asked that her real
name not be published. "It was probably '94. I was an intern, I was
sitting...having dinner, and my bladder started to hurt."

After a handful of tests failed to find the cause of the pain, Mary
eventually was referred to a specialist, who found a disease called
interstitial cystitis had infected her bladder.

It would be two years before she finally found relief, and it came in the
form of a drug that has become virtually synonymous with prescription drug
abuse -- OxyContin.

These days, Mary, who works as a social worker at a residential program for
boys, takes upward of 200 milligrams of OxyContin every day to manage her pain.

Without the drug, she said this week, her life would fall apart, just as it
nearly did before she found relief from the pain.

Interstitial cystitis is an incurable disease that produces tears and
ulcers inside the bladder, leaving sufferers in constant pain as the acid
in urine eats away at the raw flesh.

"It's like taking a paper cut and sticking your finger in ammonia, that's
what I was feeling on the inside," Mary said. "It never stopped."

With few treatment options available, Mary's doctor referred her to a pain
management clinic, where doctors wanted to use narcotics such as OxyContin
to help her deal with the disease. It was an option she flatly refused.

"I said no. I will never, ever take narcotics," she recalled. "My daughter
was 2, my son was maybe 8. It wasn't an option."

Her only other option was to resort to regular clorpactin treatments.

Every three weeks or so, Mary would travel to the hospital where doctors
would insert a catheter into her bladder, then pump bleach into her body in
an effort to literally burn the disease out.

"It was awful," she said slowly. "But it wasn't helping. And now I'm a
mess, and I'm thinking about committing suicide. I am really in trouble.
I'm at the bottom of my barrel."

In a desperate search for any relief, Mary tried taking Chinese herbs, and
even visited an acupuncturist, but the pain never subsided.

In fewer than six months, Mary said, the constant pain became so
debilitating she simply cut off the rest of the world.

"Life was great," she said, of the time before the pain began. "I had a
million friends. I had my beautiful children and my good marriage. I went
from that to being in bed. I could not get out of bed. All I did was lie in
bed and cry and cry and cry. That's it."

After nearly a year of constant pain, Mary finally broke down, called the
pain management clinic, and was put on medication.

Initially, though, things didn't seem to get much better.

Though the drugs reduced her pain, they made her "dopey," she said, making
it nearly impossible to function normally. She even had a car accident
while on the drugs.

Even when she finally found some success with OxyContin, she was hardly
ready to celebrate.

"The truth is I looked back, (and) I had made such a mess of all of the
relationships in my life," she said. "I felt that I was coming back to
life, but...my life was a mess.

"The pain had made a mess of my life, and I'm holding on by less than a
thread."

Today, though, few would ever suspect Mary was anything other than a happy,
healthy suburban mom. With OxyContin to eliminate her constant pain, she
now walks several miles each day, and cares for her two active children.

But her fear at being found out is very real, as is her fear of the drug's
reputation for abuse.

Besides keeping the drug locked in a safe in her house, she also keeps a
supply of the drug at a friend's house, and carefully guards the information.

"A few people (know)," she said. "My supervisor, the owner of the program
(where she works) knows. And one very close friend knows. That's absolutely it.

"If I came out to the average Joe that I take OxyContin, the whole thing
would be different. No one believes you can function like this with this
medication."

Perhaps her only greater fear is that the drug may one day not be there.

Prompted by an explosion of OxyContin abuse, particularly among teens and
college students, U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch two weeks ago introduced a bill
that would pull the drug off the shelves until it can be made safer.

"This product is one of the most addictive substances to be legally sold in
the United States," Lynch wrote in an opinion piece in the Boston Herald.
"It is so inherently addictive that it is unsafe for the general population
to whom it is being marketed and prescribed."

To reduce the chances for abuse, Lynch urged Purdue Pharma, the drug's
manufacturer, to develop methods of preventing addicts from overriding the
drug's time-release feature.

Most addicts crush the pills, then inhale or inject the drug for a
heroin-like high.

Lynch also urged better and more consistent warnings on the dangers of
physical dependency and addiction, and more and better education of doctors
and pharmacists about who should be prescribed the drug.

"Until we see meaningful steps to make OxyContin safer, I have no other
option than to seek it's removal," he wrote.

It's a prospect that terrifies Mary.

"There is no life back in that bed and without OxyContin," she said. "I do
understand the dangers for abusers, but taking that drug off the market
would take away the lives of so many victims of chronic pain.

"What a shame that it is being judged because of those who choose to misuse
it. What about the people like myself that choose to use it correctly, so
we can have a life?"