LIMBAUGH ADMITS ADDICTION

Sympathy Keeps Sufferers of Chronic Pain From Rush to Judgment

They feel his pain ... sort of.

Columbia-area residents who also have coped with chronic pain
expressed some sympathy Friday after Rush Limbaugh admitted he became
addicted to painkillers following back surgery.

But they also said the talk-radio superstar could have coped with his
pain without resorting to black-market drug buys.

"I feel for the guy. I feel for anybody that's in pain," said Jim
Middlebrooks, 41, of Columbia.

But Middlebrooks, who takes methadone and uses biofeedback for pain
from reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), said pain relief needn't
result in addiction to potent narcotics such as OxyContin.

"I took OxyContin for two years and never had any troubles."

Debbie Lewis, 48, of Batesburg-Leesville, leads a support group for
chronic pain sufferers. Many worry about potential drug addiction, she
said.

"This kind of story gives (pain-relief) drugs a bad reputation," she
said of the Limbaugh revelations.

"That's what's making it hard for a lot of people to get the pain
medicine they need."

There certainly are options for pain sufferers besides buying
black-market drugs through the household help, she said.

"He could have had a morphine pump, like I have," said Lewis, who
suffers from RSD pain that developed after spinal surgery.

"It costs about $30,000, but I got one, and he could have,
too."

Dr. Shawn Stinson, an associate professor of medicine at USC, often
treats patients with back pain at the University Specialty Clinics.

"Chronic pain is a huge problem," he said. "The medical community has
acknowledged that we don't do as good of a job as we could in treating
it."

Ideally, he said, patients should work closely with their doctors to
find the type and the dose of pain relievers that will give them the
most relief and fewest side effects.

"The vast majority of patients with chronic pain do not turn into
narcotic-abusing people," he said.

Doctors do say close monitoring is needed with a medication such as
OxyContin, whose reputation for potential abuse earned it the label of
"hillbilly heroin."

Possible drug abuse "is always in the back of my mind when I prescribe
medications: Does this patient have any risk factors for dependence?"
said Dr. Tim Zgleszewski, of Palmetto Health's Center for Pain Management.

But he said people taking narcotics for pain can function at a high
level, working at demanding jobs and driving safely.

Stinson agreed, and said severe pain can be a much greater threat to a
person's ability to work, think and communicate.

"If you've got chronic back pain, and I'm talking about the kind where
you wince whenever you move, you're not effective at any of those
things," he said.

Linda Torri of Lexington knows all about that.

"Chronic pain really does affect your life," said Torri, 51, another
patient with reflex sympathetic dystrophy.

"It's hard to concentrate, even to read a book."

While Torri relates to Limbaugh's story of coping with pain, she's
upset that abuse of painkillers makes it more difficult for patients
to get them.

"It's gotten to the point now that most doctors will not prescribe
narcotics for chronic pain," said Torri, who is trying a new
medication, time-release morphine, to help with what she calls
"extreme days" of pain.

Torri said she sympathizes with the difficulty of beating an
addiction. She quit smoking in 2000 after smoking for 25 years. Her
advice to Limbaugh as he goes into rehab?

"Say 'I'm sorry.' Sometimes you just have to say 'I'm sorry, I'm
human, I made a mistake.'"