You may have seen HBO’s documentary The Crime of the Century about pharmaceutical companies influencing doctors to prescribe an abundance of pain medication. But there’s another story that may make for a sequel. CDC guidelines combined with DEA threats to doctors are now leaving chronic pain patients without the access to opioid pain medication that makes their lives worth living. It’s an insane over-correction to a poorly analyzed problem. Many of these pain patients, including Kratom Science Podcast guest Dijon Evans (Episode 42) who has complex regional pain syndrome, have turned to kratom after nearly committing suicide from being forced off opioids. Hundreds of others did not make it. I talk to Dr. Thomas Kline, a physician out of Raleigh, former chief of Hospital at Home service at Harvard Medical, Boston Children’s hospital physician, and outspoken pain patient advocate. He talks about why limited access to opioid pain meds does not solve the problem of addiction, Type 1 and Type 2 addiction, why the CDC should have no jurisdiction over doctor prescriptions, and why more and more pain patients are committing suicide.
Thomas Kline on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr7rhfWEP_NKI7SfwiTFfxA
Thomas Kline on Twitter https://twitter.com/thomasklinemd
https://thomasklinemd.medium.com/
https://www.nationalpaincouncil.org/
“SUICIDES associated with forced tapering of opiate pain treatments” https://thomasklinemd.medium.com/opioidcrisis-pain-related-suicides-associated-with-forced-tapers-c68c79ecf84d
“The ABCs of Addiction” https://www.jatheducational.com/post/the-abc-s-of-addiction-there-are-two-distinctly-different-types-of-addiction-and-it-matters
“FDA/CDER Response to Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing – Partial Petition Approval and Denial” https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2012-P-0818-0793
Music: Risey, “Memories of Thailand”
The Kratom Science Podcast is written and produced by Brian Gallagher for KratomScience.com
Disclaimer: There is no content on the Kratom Science Podcast nor on KratomScience.com that in any way constitutes medical claims or medical advice. You should consult a medical professional for medical advice and we believe this sincerely. Take care.
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At this point I have not studied Kratom enough to have a position. I neither support nor condemn the product. There is not enough pain medicine prescribed to the ten million with rare and chronic disease. Even though opioid pain medicine’s bad reputation is exaggerated to the point that few patients are receiving proper full FDA approved doses. Patients are reporting pain and disruption of life so severe they equate it to being “tortured”. Reading first hand accounts of hundreds and hundreds of painful disease patients being cut down or off, I cannot disagree.