CHRONIC PAIN ARCHIVES

Rev M W Durrance B.Missions, B.Ed, B.Scriptures, M.Theology


Organizations:

Medical Reform for the Americas
Ekklesia Missions Inc.
EKKLESIA FOUNDATION








Pain is not just a state of mind

Disease can take it's toll.

Be sensitive. Let us make this forum a help to all.



Rev M W Durrance

Chronic Pain




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From : LatinoLink
To : Mike Turner - England Msg: #5, 19-Dec-96 10:59pm

Subject : MEXICAN GOVERNMENT HOLDS TIGHT REIN ON USE OF MORPHINE


New York Times News Service

MEXICO CITY --

Everyone in the building knew that the old woman in the first-floor apartment was suffering unspeakable pain.

Her screams echoed through the lobby day and night.


The woman, Maria Teresa Nogueda de Acevedo, was dying of lung cancer.

The strongest pain killer she could get, Demerol, reduced the awful hurt for a few hours, but when the drug wore off, the pain flooded back.

A doctor recommended morphine, but in Mexico it was almost impossible to get.

A woman who lived on the eighth floor of the building, a local radio journalist, was so shaken by the screams that she called the Mexican secretary of health and demanded he do something.

She nagged him on her daily radio program. Finally, the official allowed Mrs. Nogueda's family to bring in morphine from the United States.
She died peacefully a few days later.
That was in August 1990.

And even though the government signed an international agreement to make morphine widely available for medical uses the month before Mrs. Nogueda died,

most cancer patients in Mexico except the rich and the well-connected still cannot get the drug, which the World Health Organization has recognized as essential for alleviating chronic pain.

In the West in recent years, doctors have increasingly recognized the importance of aggressively treating pain as part of medical care, and that even powerful narcotics like morphine do not cause long-term addiction problems in most patients.


But in Mexico and many other parts of Latin America, unfounded fears of addiction and the inadequate training of young doctors about medical uses of morphine have meant that it is not readily available, leaving thousands of people to suffer needlessly.

Although morphine is not considered expensive, it is used so sparingly in Mexico and the rest of Latin America that the region accounts for only about 1 percent of all the morphine consumed in the world.

There is another important factor limiting the medical use of powerful drugs in Mexico: the worry here that the United States will oppose any attempt to increase the availablility of morphine because it could find its way into the illicit market.

That fear, justified or not, has made Mexican regulators sensitive to signals from Washington about the use of morphine. One doctor even charges that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has interfered in legitimate drug shipments to Mexico.


Dr. Juan Ignacio Romero, who headed the World Health Organization's Cancer Pain Relief Program in Mexico from 1988 to 1990, said that in 1988, the DEA scuttled a plan to import about 10,000 tablets of a narcotic called Dilaudid. The drug, like morphine, is made from the gum of opium poppies.
"They were afraid we would not be able to control the morphine and that it would end up on the black market in the United States,'' Romero said. "That's an insult.''

No one at the American drug agency could remember the incident, DEA officials said.


Eventually Romero, with the help of the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency, managed to import about 20 pounds of morphine -- enough for about 650,000 morphine tablets. That represented practically all the morphine used in Mexico from 1987 to 1995.

Current regulations on the use and distribution of narcotics are so restrictive that even Dr. Francisco Higuera, the Mexican government's chief medical regulator, acknowledges that the system forces most doctors to use Demerol and other pain killers that are less effective than morphine but easier to get.

No matter where they practice, doctors have to come to Mexico City to get special prescription booklets to prescribe morphine. The maximum allowable dosage is usually less than what patients need, and the process has to be repeated every month.

If a patient manages to get a prescription, having it filled is nearly impossible. Most pharmacies do not have the security measures or the university-trained pharmacist that the government requires

The National Cancer Institute is almost alone in regularly administering morphine,

but most Mexicans outside the largest cities do not have access to the institute's programs. And some here fear that the problem goes unresolved because well-connected people who would have the power to demand change simply fly to Houston for medical attention.

Medical Reform For The Americas


Morphine first came to Mexico in a substantial way during World War II, when the United States encouraged the growth of opium poppies to replace Asian sources shut off by the war.

Traffickers still clandestinely cultivate poppy plantations, especially in the states of Guerrero and Chihuahua, where local Indians are enticed or forced to enter the trade.


Scientific studies in the 1940s and 1950s suggested that the medical use of morphine could lead to addiction.


But later studies have uniformly shown that the chance of addiction is minuscule, and that the good derived from easing a patient's pain can far outweigh the risk.


Nonetheless, Helen Carvell, a nurse investigator at the National Cancer Institute, said she had given a speech on pain relief at a symposium in December and asked which of the 100 Mexican doctors there had ever prescribed morphine.


Not one hand went up.


"Part of the problem here is the myth,'' Mrs. Carvell said. "It says that if you are anywhere near the smell of narcotics and something goes wrong, you'll end up in jail.''

Dr. Charles Cleeland, director of the Pain Research Group at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and an ardent supporter of the use of morphine for pain, said many American drug companies refused to export morphine to countries like Mexico because they fear it will be diverted to illegal street use.


In December, Mexico finally certified one laboratory, Technofarma, to produce a morphine tablet. Camerino Figueroa Lara, director of sales for Technofarma, said the Mexico City company could produce enough tablets to meet national demand.

But he would not say how many tablets were being sold.


Health officials say they are considering ways to ease restrictions and make morphine more widely available. That could go a long way toward fulfilling the agreement Mexico signed in 1990, but Dr. Silvia Allende Perez, director of the pain clinic at the National Cancer Institute, doubts that the Government has the will to make such changes.


"Countries like Spain and Japan have increased their use of medicinal morphine without any increase in illicit use, and Mexico could do the same,'' Dr. Allende Perez said. Even Colombia has managed to make morphine more available in recent years without any noticeable change in illicit use.


"But Mexican bureaucrats would rather just restrict the use of morphine altogether and avoid problems,'' she said. "That means that as always, it is the patients who need the drug who have to be sacrificed.''

This article was brought to you thanks to LatinoLink 169 1996 LatinoLink -+- FleetStreet 1.17+

* 0rigin: Ekklesia BBS (2:250/175)
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From : Sandy

SNT To : Mike Turner Msg: #7, 19-Dec-96 10:58pm Subject : pain clinic

REPLY-TO: pwilson991@aol.com


hello, my name is sandy. I am a chronic pain suffer of the neck/back for 8yrs, and 8 surgeries. the codition is considered acute at this date. i have a ton of pain meds but refuse to take. i have considered a pain clinic but got a price of $500 a day and a 30 day stay. I am seeking help. I tried my first pain block and it faild. What does that mean. the pain is unbearable and i am afraid for my life. the drs.

think after all this time i must be addicted which is far from the ans. I don't believe in many of the meds. and am very concious of the side affects. so i attempt to control my pain by distraction and no sleep. if you find any ans. to your problem and pain clinic relief, please email pwilson991-Attn Sandy thanks -+- FleetStreet 1.17+

* 0rigin: ekklesia@rapport.org < > 44+ 161 2485743 (2:250/175)

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From : Jonathan Grobe

Msg: #2, 13-May-96 Subject : chronic-pain newsgroup created
From: grobe@netins.net (Jonathan Grobe) REPLY-TO: grobe@netins.net
chronic-pain, has been created.
alt.support.chronic-pain is primarily to provide support and comfort for those with chronic pain, including family members, friends, and other interested parties.

It discusses that which causes chronic pain; medical science's answers, holistic approaches, the frustration many feel about what is perceived to be a lack of responsiveness by others to that which causes chronic pain, as well as inadequate and inaccessible medical care, incorrect medical methodology...

Jonathan Grobe grobe@netins.net
-+- FleetStreet 1.13 #840 * 0rigin: Ekklesia BBS (2:250/175)

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 14:27:47 +

Subject: a small blessing
may all life's best be yours :)

=====================================
Subject: Look Beyond
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 10:56:10 +0000
There are times to LOOK beyond this World
http://home.att.net/~durrance/psalm.121

--- FROM ORIGINAL RAP-CARE FORUM now renamed Prophetic Chronicles of of Yom Kippur from 20 Sept 1999
* as of June 2001 http://EkklesiaBBS.info
Subject: Eleven Years OLD - Ekklesia BBS

EKKLESIA Bulletin Board Service from Lap Top to an EISA SCSI sixteen port tower. Aug 1999
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Subject: Re: Don't leave earth

Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 21:40:46 GMT
From: Phikent

As to the message of the Gospel, don't leave earth without HIM! >>
He left without me
Kento

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Global Alert: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
Updated April 23, 2003


SOURCE: World Health Organization, April 23, 2003. A deadly respiratory infection, provisionally called "severe acute respiratory syndrome" (SARS),


is spreading quickly around the world, prompting WHO to issue a global alert for the first time in more than a decade.

* 4,288 worldwide * 251 deaths



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'Lorenzo's Oil'



Author: Debbie


Date:

11/14/2001 11:26 am AT (DST)

I have just recently watched again the film, 'Lorenzo's Oil,' and afterwards, considered these things;


Lorenzo was a young boy who had a medical condition that had no known medical cure. Lorenzo's parents refused to give up on him, though years of heartache lay ahead, as they had to watch while Lorenzo's body and his ability to function was ravaged by illness.

There was no prospects at the time in medical research for the alleviation of his suffering, and the help he so needed for his recovery. But this did not deter Mr. and Mrs. Odone they were determined to find a cure for Lorenzo.

Devoting their whole life to caring for Lorenzo, and finding a cure, was their live's passion to seeing their beloved son well again.


This single-minded belief in finding a cure was most tangible, they believed that there was something out there, even when the odds were against them, and people in prime positions to help were not always helpful.

Mr. and Mrs. Odone believed that it was just a matter of time of finding, of discovering the answer.
Years of research went into searching for a cure for Lorenzo. A cure that would have the effect of helping other boys and their families in the same position as the Odone family.


Within this dtermination, was hope, and yet still the daunting sense of reality of the immense difficulty and bleakness of the situation, which Mr. Odone would very lovingly help his wife to face. Within the pursuit of an answer, were many times of standing still, standing alone. Seeing efforts come to naught and yet still holding on to hope, that one avenue ruled out, meant new avenues to pursue. Failure pointed to new directions, other possibilities to try.


In all the physical care Lorenzo was given, Mrs. Odone was keen to ensure Lorenzo's well-being of mind and soul.

While he could do nothing for himself, he was read to, sung to, in fact the very bed on which he lay helpless became the very centre of all the activity within the house. Visitors to the house were there to visit the whole family, even though one member of that family was unable to communicate back for the present time. Lorenzo was able to participate by hearing and listening, even though his illness had deprived him of sight and responding back. Not only was his mind stimulated and kept active, his heart and inner being would know that tireless commitment to him as a person, the care motivated by love that could communicate to him how precious he was to them, how much he mattered, how much he was valued.

Lorenzo was loved and held within that love.


The film depicts also, that, care given without a sense of love and compassion is without meaning, mechanical not benefiting either the receiver or the provider of that care.


The Odone's response in this situation, speaks of their commitment to serve, shows their ability to stick to a task and see the matter through. To find a way of being able to live within a situation that in reality is so very difficult, and yet find the determination against the odds to pursue an answer even if that answer means devoting all your time for many years in order to find it. What love this is, what care, what devotion, what compassion -

Can it be that it is the quality of our devotion that counts?


I'm reminded of the Bible passage in Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 13, where God's Word says;


"And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." NASB



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