To: DEA

Let doctors prescribe pain medication for those suffering with chronic pain.

Stamp out the new laws that have Pain clinics and Neurosurgeons afraid to write pain medication prescriptions to their patients. Let pain clinics treat patients with chronic extreme pain with all methods of treatment INCLUDING medication management. These new laws are keeping desperate pain sufferers from medication they need.

Why is this important?

I was injured with a burst fracture and have had multiple spinal surgeries. I am told that the burst fracture will cause me extreme pain the remainder of my life and I am only 51. Pain medication is all that has kept me from taking my life. It does not eliminate the pain but it gets me through each day. Now my surgeon is afraid to prescribe me medication due to the new laws. His nurse called 4 area Pain Clinics on my behalf and none will manage my treatment to include Pain medication due to the new laws. We people with terrible pain cannot work, go to the movies, travel, simply enjoy life anymore. It was already taxing on us to have to get new prescriptions each month (Fentanyl) and have to stand in line at pharmacy counters (insurance cancelled contract with pharmacies in my area with drive up). Now those pharmacies if I am lucky enough to get a prescription have protocol in place putting flags on us if we have been on medications longer than 6 months. Patients are being cutoff without even chance to get help through withdrawal. Pain patients have already been closely scrutinized with their needs. There has to be a different way to keep those medications off the streets without keeping it from those who need it to endure their lives.