Dr. Merrill, a former Air Force doctor, was convicted on 98 counts for illegally dispensing controlled substances. This seems to be happening a lot recently. Doctors are finding out that they can trade a couple swipes of the pen for big bucks, and with the insurance companies pushing back on Doctors, its probably a very real temptation to try and 'get back' at the system.
But this has more victims than the people directly involved. I'm a chronic pain patient due to Failed Back Surgery syndrome (that's right...they have a name because it happens so frequently). This means (in my case anyway) that the scar tissue around my spinal cord presses against the cord and causes extreme pain in my lower back, legs and feet. I tried several procedures to control the pain including a morphine pump (which is surgically placed in your abdomen and drips small amounts of morphine directly into the sac of fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord) and spinal cord stimulator (which is surgically placed in your abdomen and pulses electrical charges directly to the spine via a small wire and electrodes that are threaded through the vertebrae and along the spinal cord)--and had no success. Unless some new treatment comes along, I'm left trying to control the pain via narcotics.
So how am I affected by what Dr. Merrill did? Glad you asked. First, my surgeon changed the narcotic I was taking from Oxycontin to morphine because of the negative press surrounding Oxycontin. No medical reason...just a political one. The morphine made me sick. It took months to sneak up on me, but I was always feeling slightly off and the feeling grew. Towards the end, I was miserable all the time. Why? Because my doctor felt pressure to change the drugs because some idiots like Dr. Merrill were abusing them.
I'm now in the hands of a pain clinic in Philadelphia...a wonderful group of doctors--you couldn't get me to leave. When I began, I could make the trip into Philadelphia every three months. I'd get a checkup to make sure there were no unexpected side-effects and then get scripts for the next three months. Now, I have to make the trip into Philly each month. Why? Because idiots like Dr. Merrill abused the system and the FDA makes everyone come in every month to make it 'harder' for those abusing the system to get away with it.
One of the things about taking narcotics is that they loose their effectiveness as your body accommodates the drug better. Between lost effectiveness and general adjustments to pain levels, my doctor wanted to try me on a higher dose. I take 5 pills per day--150 per month. He wanted to raise that to 10 pills per day--300 per month, but he could not because that number would cause a problem and likely FDA investigation. So I got 150 pills per month---but of a higher dose---more medicine than if I'd taken the 300 per month. But 150 pills can't be sold to 300 people so it's a safer dose? Right and I have a bridge I'll sell you in Brooklyn.
I hate the drugs I take for what they do to me. I have to take 10 laxatives a day to stay regular. I feel dopey most of the time. I'm not as sharp as I was before the meds. I feel like a criminal every time I have to get them from the pharmacy. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't function without them so it's a Love/Hate relationship, but I'd gladly trade them for a cure. That people like Merrill have abused the system and made it harder for me and thousands of people just like me, to get what we need to function makes me sick. Thanks Doc...too bad you can't repay me for the trouble I have to go through so you can make a few extra bucks.
Fla. Guilty of Overprescribing Pain Pills - Forbes.com
