Tag Archives: Stars and Stripes Newspaper

Military Docs Treat Pain in New Ways and Shame in All the Old Ways

medical practice, military, news, oyd rants, shaming, , , , , , , , ,

Gentle readers! I know! I am going to worsen my hernia by reading this stuff every day! I can’t help myself! It’s like tearing myself away from a Star Wars Marathon and a free case of Guinness and Harp on New Years Eve Back when I was child free and in college! Did you ever hear about that drinking game?

Because what I really need right now is more news pounding home just how EEEEEVIIIIL drugs are and how in danger some of us are of becoming dependent on them!

Especially, WOES! Those poor servicemembers, because they would never ever have a reason to use them. Not with an almost decade of war going on in two countries and the highest rate of PTSD, suicide, TBI, and other things we have ever seen in our troops before.

Now, let me slow down for a moment, because there are some really good things going on here. This nerve blocking thing sounds pretty awesome, but I am not a medical professional of any type unless you were going by the number of dram bottles I have on hand. While I have a lot of not-so-nice things to say about the already “pins and needles” feelings in my hands and feet, I will take that in other parts of my body over what I deal with now thats-for-damned-sure. But the juxtaposition of a new therapy with the whole “drugs are bad, mmmm’kay” meme is wearing on my last pain free nerve. The shaming of opiate use is tired and older than my favorite period underwear.

As more troops return from the battlefield with chronic pain, the military has seen a spike in the number of prescriptions for opiate painkillers. More troubling, abuse of painkillers is on the rise: About 22 percent of soldiers admitted misusing prescribed drugs, mostly painkillers, in a 12-month period, according to the results of a Pentagon survey released this year.

So, how did their magical survey define “misusing”? Taking more than prescribed? One more? Two more? Because you were in MORE pain than that prescribed amount of pain managed and you were having trouble getting an appointment with your PCM to get the dosage adjusted or any other treatment? Anything beyond precisely what is on the label is “misusing” a prescription. The military has an entire month devoted to prescription drug abuse awareness…but what they don’t do much to address is the underlying need that might cause servicemembers to resort to such a thing; the fact that they might be in pain and they might not have doctors paying attention or being able to pay enough attention to them or their pain.

At the VA hospital in Tampa, all patients taking painkillers are incrementally tapered off them, Clark said.

Because chronic pain never completely goes away, the hospital’s staff emphasizes physical rehabilitation to strengthen muscles and joints near the pain source. When the injury involves the brain — as in PTSD and mild TBIs — the focus is on treating symptoms that could exacerbate pain.

“Pain may make it more difficult to treat those issues,” Clark said, because “all these things interact.”

But what about the remaining pain? The article never goes on to address what is done for that remaining chronic pain. You know, the pain that never goes away. Because we know that just sucking it up doesn’t work in patients who have chronic pain, and if all patients on painkillers are taken off of them over time…well then, what the hell is actually being done?

This new treatment sounds great for the people to whom it is available, and for the people for whom it will work, but let’s not jump ahead of ourselves and pat ourselves on the backs pretending that this is some magical solution that has suddenly rid us of the need for those nasty opiates or narcotics that are JUST. SO. BAD. FOR. EVERYONE. (You fucking addicts! I mean, c’mon, you were all thinking it!) (Right?) Dr. White is one of only six doctors who do what he does, and the article doesn’t say that the others offer his fancy treatment, nor does the article make any mention of how many civilian specialists are working on this treatment.

I worry that the VA and other military treatment facilities will look at this as a sign that they should be able to deny more patients painkillers. Progress will mean exactly nothing if it sacrifices patient care or hinders the quality of life of patients in chronic pain and with life-long illness and injury. While this article correctly talks about how chronic pain is processed differently by the brain not every uniformed doctor and military medical professional subscribes to that theory, and what the military doesn’t need right now is more doctors, medical professionals, or hospitals bragging about how all of their patients are off those evil, bad, no good drugs without offering them real help.

For Cereal, Stars and Stripes? Mocking “Paranoia” is Headline-Worthy?

activism, class issues, disability activism, For Cereal?, military, shaming, social attitudes, , , , , , ,

OK, so I saw this one in my paper edition because I get it the night before (and technically a day late, since I am in the future!), but you can find it online too.

In the 16 March edition of Stars and Stripes writer Jeff Schogol wrote an article containing letters from people who sent letters to the Defense Department website. He calls the letters he said the DoD provided to him “the more bizarre feedback it gets” and notes that “[t]he authors’ names were withheld, but all spelling, grammar and paranoia are authentic“. (emphasis mine)

The article, titled “Airborne bears to catch bin Laden and other letters to the Pentagon” seems little more than a great way to laugh at people for myriad reasons. Let’s poke fun at their lack of intelligence! See how they can’t construct proper sentences? Those silly people without proper educations and who aren’t newspaper columnists or Pentagon officials! Ha ha! That’s so funny!

There were several letters published by Jeff Schogol in his article that I don’t feel comfortable publishing here, because I don’t feel that it is proper to display these letters that were meant to be private correspondence and won’t further his ableism. I don’t want to further hurt a person who might already be pained by finding hir something they never meant to have public spattered all over the internet and a military wide newspaper. They were not meant for this type of dissemination, and I think it was vile of whichever Pentagon employee thought it was appropriate to release them to a newspaper. I also don’t feel that it is in good taste to print a letter in a newspaper with the intention of laughing at the “crazy” person, as it is clear here that is what is meant. We are supposed to have a good chuckle at the supposed ludicrous ideas that are put forth by the letter writers. Schogol obviously feels that it is OK to call people paranoid and make light of mental illness and disability. Har har.

I am going to invite you to write to Jeff Schogol at Stars and Stripes and let him know that you don’t think it was a great idea to run this article, or that it was in good taste to reprint these letters. Or if you feel inspired, maybe you would like to use the same venue as the original letter writers who thought that they were writing private correspondence to the DoD, and let them know just how unprofessional it was to release those emails to a newspaper for a chuckle.