Charli

First you are physically dependant and your body would need more meds to get the same results. Go to the patient advocate and the newspaper. Both can help you. Also go to every veteran organization you can find,. Call your elected officials. This is the fault of the VA. How do they know you didn't return the meds? Or that they never got to you. This is exactly why I do not get meds mailed. I simply told the VA we live in a rural area and things get stolen (not a lie). If you go through withdrawals go to the ER.

The big problem here is that the VA does NOT have a pain management system in which all modalities of pain management are used. Massage, acupuncture, opiod therapy, psychological therapy and more need to be used together to control the pain. I recently got upgraded to 50% disability due to my back but no increase in pain meds or other treatments, EVERY VA should have a pain management team so that veterans get the treatment they earned and deserve.. The only way this is going to happen is for us to organize, write letters to elected officials, newspapers, etc, and generally just make life miserable for the government until we get what we want. I think we need a review board when someone is said to be in violation of their pain contract. I also think the DEA needs to be disbanded. The war on drugs was lost before it ever started and we could restart our economy by treating people as adults and legalizing everything and make the consequence for infringing on someone elses rights huge. But unless we become politically involved we will continue to be controlled by others.

You're not addicted, You're dependent. Addiction is a complex physical and mental result of misuse of pain meds. An addict will do anything for a fix a dependent patient will not. There is a push from the top to wean all of us off our pain meds if we don't have cancer. Quality of life apparetnly doesn't count. I'm putting my affairs in order just in case I can't find a pain management doctor outside the VAMC system. Personally I'm sick of the DEA and some idiots in DC inflicting their BS on me.

Every veteran on narcotics (what a nasty word I prefer opioid therapy) has to sign a narcotic contract in order to get pain meds.

They are supposed to wean you off but YES they can do it. I was told that there is a push from the top to wean any vet without cancer off their pain meds. I just had mine reduced by 50% and my quality of life is gone. I called my elected officials and there wasn't much to be done. So I'm trying to find a doctor on the outside to give me my meds. I've told my PCP that I will NOT live like this and so they sent me to the shrink. The shrink asked me if I was going to hurt myself and I said I think you people are doing a great job hurting me and they gave me the speal that they're caring about me. HUHHHHHHH! this much care might kill me. We had better circle the wagons and start writing every elected official we can or we're all going to lose our pain meds.. I was also told that doctors that do not wean patients off the meds will get lots of pressure to do so.