The following is a letter by Tammy Malone, a chronic pain patient, who has asked for it to be shared:

Dear Friends,

People are talking about the addicts who are overdosing due to the “opioid epidemic”. Maybe we should START talking about the people who actually take them just to be able to function thru life. Chronic unmeasurable pain is a terrible way to live. I know from experience that when you live in that much pain, you get to a point where all you can see is the ultimate way out. Chronic Pain is blinding. It blinds you from life, from family and joy, and happiness. It robs you from your hopes and dreams, and a life you thought you’d always have until all you see is a terrible, struggling existence…until you are left withering and suffering, and unable to get any help,… until you lay there really asking yourself, “Is this all my life is ever going to consist of?” Living in sooo much pain? It is not an option.

Too many of us are forced to live this way, until it is just too much to bear and suicide is our only way out. I can honestly say, I have thought of this.

I was in so much pain where I was contemplating suicide. Then I found a compassionate, caring group of doctors at a clinic who specialize in pain management and my life was spared. I was given shots, acupuncture, and massage. We discussed a diet change, and I started a diet that worked towards anti-inflammatory issues and helps to slow down the destruction of Lyme disease that is still breaking down the joints and bones in my body. And I was put on a manageable dosing of Demerol. For 6 years, I had my life back. I had my dreams back, and I could see a future of a life filled with family and friends, and joy and happiness. My body was still breaking down, and nothing is going to change that. I’m 53 and have the spine of a 90 year old. I’ve shrunk over a 1/2″ due to my discs deteriorating and have had 3 discs removed and my spine fused because the pressure was literally cutting off the fluid in my spinal cord. Both knees are bone-on-bone. The joints in my hips are deteriorated and now I have minor unhinging when I walk. Shoulders are blown out, and I have fluid pockets in many of the joints now so that it’s not only painful but difficult to function. This destruction is not going to stop, or get better, and I don’t care how many Tylenol you throw at it, it won’t touch the pain. But the pain management group helped me exist. The opioids helped me exist, and function, and see a life beyond the blinding pain. It gave me another day, …another 2,372 days with my family and friends.

Then came the “War on Opioids”.

My doctor discussed the issue that this war was causing in his practice, and what it meant for the patients he spent helping every day. What it WAS going to ultimately mean for me. To say I was in a panic is an understatement. The thought of returning to a life in that much pain, was unfathomable. I knew I had about 6 months before he said they (the Do-Gooders and Big Brother) was going to push my doctor to start tapering me down; I was taking 100mg pills every 6 hrs to 8 hrs.
We discussed the other “acceptable” options, which we had or were already doing, and I cried at the fact I knew what was coming: an unacceptable existence.
It was the same time my parents had talked about getting me and my husband a plane ticket to come to Montana for a mini vacation at our family cabin in the Rockies. I really thought, “This is going to be my last family vacation. The last time I am going to be able to make happy memories. For my family. For my husband. Because in a year, I won’t be here.” Suicide was already in my forethought.

Although the stress of all of it had already began to increase my pain threshold to a daily living of a level 8.5; I agreed to go. In 11 days I lost 22lbs in inflammation, due to its elevation and the dryness of the state, and I found out Montana was an approved medical cannabis state. I enjoyed the vacation, and rest and was happy I went.
Though the night I stepped off the plane my ankles swelled to meet the size of my calves. I couldn’t walk as my ankles too had begun to break down.

At my next appointment I opened a dialogue with my pain management doctor, and I asked him about medical cannabis and what he thought about it. In the next couple of weeks I talked with my entire team of doctors, 7 in all, and started finding out the benefits of medical cannabis. With the exception of my neurologist who was treating me for my neuro issues and had just begun treating me for seizures, all of my doctors agreed it might be an option. So we sold our dream property, got rid of our horses, sold everything in Tennessee and moved to Montana.

I’d like to say everything is 100% better but that wouldn’t be accurate. Moving to Montana and starting medical cannabis has been a challenge. After an incredibly stressful time of trying to find doctors who would EVEN LOOK at my medical records, I was able to find a compassionate doctor in Helena named Dr. Ibsen. He went over my medical history with me, looked at the extensive list of medications I was taking, including my pain meds, reviewed my 6″ stack of medical folders I brought with me, including disk copies of MRI’s and X-Rays, and after an hour of discussion, agreed to take me on. I cried with relief. He was my lifeline.

It took 6 months to taper me off my pain meds. I dropped down from another 44 pills I was taking a day to now 7. Medical cannabis has not been easy—trying to find the right strain and proper dosage for me. I don’t like the high-drugged-up feeling (honestly Demerol never made me feel that way). And it doesn’t relieve the pain completely. Where Demerol kept it at a manageable 3-4 level, MC keeps me at about a level 6, which is uncomfortable most days. Occasionally, when I do overdo, I can spend 24 to 36 hours at a level 8.5 and these are the days I wish I was still taking the opioids or at least they were an option during those times.

All in all, I was lucky. I was lucky my parents thought to give me a vacation that unexpectedly showed me there might be another option for living. I was lucky my husband agreed that we should sell everything, and try MT. I was lucky, and thankful that after meeting and getting turned away from 4 other doctors in MT, that I found a compassionate doctor in Dr. Ibsen, and that he took me on. I was lucky I had options. It saved my life.

But I think about all the other pain patients out there who DO NOT, have those options. This “War On Opioids” is quickly becoming a “War On Pain Patients”. I did some research, and the numbers that are being put out there labeled as overdoses due to opioids also includes all overdoses on heroin. These are drugged addicts who die from heroin overdoses, not pain patients from opioid overdoses. We are being labeled as addicts, not as pain patients who are just trying to live a life. Of hopes and dreams, pain free (or at least manageable).

Not too long ago I had a supposed friend call me an addict because she had a preconceived idea of how I was living my life. That my taking pain meds to function through the breakdown of my body made me the same as her opioid-addicted son—someone who did whatever it took to get his fix. She hurt me and it cost a friendship, but it also made me really see that too many of us are getting labeled just like that. Things need to change. We need to be HEARD, and we need to tell our stories. We don’t need to have people in Washington DC give us the only option of living a pain free life by suicide. Too many of us are dying as it is. Please leave our pain management doctors alone as they are our lifeline to the future. 
This is my story.
Tammy Malone