How the CDC Guidelines Killed My Husband

There has been a great deal of discussion about doctors taking away pain medication based on the CDC guidelines. These guidelines and the harm that has come from them have been overshadowed in the media by the crisis of opiate abuse. I am hopeful that by telling my husband's story it will give some real life perspective on the harm that these guidelines are causing for people.

My husband, Jay, was one of hundreds if not thousands of chronic pain patients that had pain medication decreased based on those guidelines. Jay was a "model" pain patient. He was seen at a pain clinic at least monthly. He never took more pills than prescribed, and he only received opiates from that clinic. He attempted any treatment alternatives offered by his doctor, his pill counts were accurate at each visit, and he never failed a urinalysis.

The decision to cut down his medication was based solely on his doctor's misinterpretation of the CDC guidelines. This decision had a huge impact on Jay's quality of life and on March 2, 2017, led him to suicide. Jay's story is not the horror story of being completely stripped of all pain medications in one visit. Jay's story is about the difference between 120 mgs and 90 mgs of morphine a day. It is a story that will explain what the difference is between three pills and four pills on a chronic pain patient's quality of life. It is about having enough medication to make life manageable and then having that pulled away suddenly. It is a story of panic of knowing what the future holds as you are being weaned down on these pills, and what these changes mean in real life.

Let me try to explain what the difference is from four pills down to three to the best of my ability. It does not seem like a drastic shift, but it really is. On four pills Jay would take medications at 9:00 am; 3:00 pm; 9:00 pm and 1:00 am or later depending on his bedtime. That six hours would usually play out like this—hour one the medication was just getting into his system; hours two to five he had good pain control; hour five going into hour six he would start hurting some but it was tolerable. We used to schedule our day so that we were going out between 10:00 and 2:00 pm with the goal to be home by 2:00 when the pill started to wear off the most.

Going from four pills to three pills meant going eight hours instead of six between dosages. When he went down to three pills he was taking medications at 9:00 am; 5:00 pm and 1:00 am exactly. That meant from 2:00 to 5:00 and 10:00 to 1:00 he was in increasing pain and from the sixth hour to the next pill the pain was almost unbearable.

Now, a little bit of history about my husband, Jay. Jay had three back surgeries, two lower and one upper fusion. He had tried steroid injections, implanted spine stimulator, physical therapy and it seems like every pain killer there was. In 2016 he was on a consistent dosage of 120 mg of immediate release morphine daily that was being prescribed by a pain clinic. The pain clinic was working with him to find a balance in his extended release medications and his pump medications in combination with this 120 mg. He found what he believed was the ideal dosage in November. It was a combination of 60 mg of extended release, 120 mg of immediate release and the medication in his pump. With this combination we were able to start doing a little bit more of the simple things like going out for dinner or taking the dogs for a walk.

We went to Georgia at Christmas time, almost a six hour car ride, and that was tough for Jay. Thankfully my family was understanding about letting him have down time, and we...