Pain Medication Reduction

[JayBrown1]

While on my appointment my doctor mentioned to me that due to the effects of long term use of pain medication the VA are wanting doctors to talk to their patients about reducing their pain meds. Some effects can be liver and kidney problems and ED after long term use of pain meds. I have been taking 2 different pain meds one 3 times a day and the other 4 times a day for over ten years now. She wants me to think about reducing my meds and let her know on my next appointment. I put in a claim for ED years ago and was denied and the reason for denial was there was no proof that my ED was from my medication. Now my doctor is telling that my pain meds over long term use can cause ED.

What am I to think about the VA?

[brokensoldier244th]

If it is in your treatment notes, then submit it. ed is caused by many things. If you can't get your doc to pin it down to meds, then va won't approve it. Remember, just b because it's on the secondary effects list doesn't mean that it's why it's happening for you. Raters are not doctors and cannot infer anything.

[brokensoldier244th]

Sorry, didn't mean to seem short with you. :-)

Va raters, while well trained go the most part, can't make medical judgements so if it ain't in the recipe (doc notes) they can't put it in the stew. make it easy for then. If you have something from your doc where you have gone in for something like GERD and you are talking omep, or something else for , copy it and highlight it. You've got hundreds of pages or more of records. Don't make them go on a snipe hunt if they don't have to.

[JayBrown1]

Brokensoldier : I understand what your saying my Doctor prescribed the blue pill for me years ago to combat ED. I am more worried about how the pain meds may affect my liver and kidney. Seeing that I have been taking these two pain meds for over ten years (methadone and oxycodone). Also when it comes to my ED it could be the from my severe back injuries or just the pain I am in on a daily basis from all of my injuries. Thanks for the info Brokensoldier I appreciate the help.

[brokensoldier244th]

NP. My ED decision notes my back injury, FYI. Because mine is so low, and the discs were never removed, they are fragmented and poke at things, exacerbating the problem. Its progressed from when I discharged in 2002 until about 2 yrs ago when I finally had it checked out. at first it wasn't very often if at all, but over the years it got worse and worse. Im married, so it wasnt anxiety or 'new person' issues or anything like that, and im only 37, so it shouldn't be age related. It may be back related depending on where your injury is and the circumstances

NSAIDS can be evil on your lower GI and upper also.

[john999]

Opiates by themselves don't do the harm the VA is talking about here. NSAIDS and Tylenol are dangerous drugs and are the ones that damage the liver. If you take more than about 3000 mgs of Tylenol a day you are probably hurting your liver. Opiates have been around for many thousands of years. Opiate addiction is not the same as use of opiates for pain. If you can live without opiates you are probably better off no doubt, but they are not the boggyman the VA makes them out to be. Alcohol is addictive and we tried making that illegal and that was a total and costly failure. Making most opiates illegal without prescription has led to the War on Drugs which has filled our prisons with sick people. Just because a tiny group of people abuse opiates is no reason to make them so hard to get that people must suffer. Why is there this hysteria about opiate abuse when millions of Americans abuse alcohol with fatal consequences on the roads every day?

John

[brokensoldier244th]

because alcohol generates revenue.