The Politics of Pain

(First Printed in the Baltimore Sun, March 27, 2024)

There is no doubt that the Opioid crisis has taken its toll on our country. In 2023, there were about 112,000 Opioid and other related drug deaths in the United States. That’s nearly double the number of U.S. soldiers lost in the Vietnam War. I’ve known a couple people who’ve lost their children due to overdose of Opioids. It’s just awful. 

To combat this scourge, Maryland, California and various other states, have passed legislation to curb the instances of prescribing Opioid related pain medication. Much of this legislation includes legal ramifications against the physician or dentist, to include loss of licenses and even criminal penalties.

Not long ago, I had a Root Canal. Most of my teeth have had Root Canals because bad teeth seems to be a family trait. And most of the teeth that have had Root Canals are covered in crowns. I would hazard a guess that my mouth has well over twenty thousand dollars invested in it. The Endodontist office asked me if I’d ever had a Root Canal and I laughed.

The Root Canal I had a few weeks ago went by the usual operating procedure. After it was done, I asked the Endodontist for a couple days of pain medication and was met with “Why do you need narcotics?” That’s a question I’ve never been asked before and it took me aback. I thought "That’s a weird question.” So I said “Because I know in a few hours when the Novocain wears off, I’ll be in pain.” Needless to say that didn’t convince her and I was sent home without a prescription.

As expected, the Novocain wore off and I was in a lot of pain. I called the dental office that I have been a patient of for thirty years and asked for a prescription. I was shocked that I was turned down. So I turned to pain management the old fashioned way and had my husband go to the liquor store and buy me a bottle of whiskey. He got me a half-pint of Jim Beam Honey Whiskey. I proceeded to wet cotton balls in the whiskey and put them on the affected gums of the root canal tooth. And I also took some shots until I felt the pain subside a bit. I have no idea how my liver felt about that, but at least I wasn’t in excruciating pain.

This experience led me to ask my Facebook Friends if they’d had a similar experience and a mountain of complaints began to pour in. Some of the stories were shocking. And most came from two states, Maryland, where I live and California, where I grew up.

“I had a tooth pulled and the dentist would not give me anything after, so I would pour whiskey into the hole where the tooth had been.”

“I was passing a kidney stone and couldn’t get any pain medication until my neighbor, who is a doctor, called my doctor and vouched for me.”

“I had a foot surgery about a year ago, got nothing! A surgery!!! I was up all night in excruciating pain.”

“They have gone insane now with giving out pain medication- I get the addiction crisis but they withhold or make it difficult for regular folks that just need coverage for a few days. Wish there was something stronger that wasn’t considered addictive so people could just get pain relief...or they would be more reasonable about giving out an adequate amount to cover the pain. Some people like my husband can’t take Ibuprofen and Tylenol just doesn’t do a whole lot. Even after surgeries they give very restricted amounts. My husband had his pacemaker replaced, deep incision and the surgeon was just like have him take Tylenol. He has had this several times-- and the recovery was pretty painful- and I had to really push for him to write a prescription for Vicodin and it was definitely needed...but if I hadn’t pushed we would have had nothing”

The worst story came from an old high school friend in California. Her husband was dying of cancer. He laid in a medical bed in the living room and was in excruciating pain. She told of calling the doctor’s office in tears as she watched her husband in pain and he didn’t receive any pain medication until he was admitted to hospice.

The tooth pain experience caused me to write my Maryland delegate to complain that the state legislature had gone too far and more legislation was needed to correct the mistake. Haven’t heard back.

So here we are in a society where the innocent get punished for the bad decisions of others. I didn’t need a week’s worth of pain medication, but I certainly needed pain medication that first day and night. I don’t need to be completely out of pain, I just need to get to the point where the pain isn’t disabling. That is common sense. Hopefully our state legislature will discover that.