ALERT: Tell the FDA How Your Life Will Be Impacted by Restrictive Rx Changes

A week ago an FDA panel voted to tighten restrictions on pain medications containing Hydrocodone, making the rules for getting it the same as for morphine and oxycodone. This includes medications such as Vicodin, Lortab and Norco. The FDA is also being lobbied by a physicians’ group to severely cap access to opioid medications (including a set maximum daily dose) for patients with chronic non-cancer pain. 

[For more details about these two important issues, see the email from the National Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain Association (NFMCPA) linked HERE]

The FDA will be meeting this coming Monday, February 4 with regard to these matters. It is *vital* that you share your concerns and personal stories; they need to hear directly from people who are in chronic pain. They need to understand how the specific restrictions being considered will impact the quality of your daily life.

To make your voice heard before any decisions are made, please act quickly. Go to this PAGE and click on bar in the upper right hand corner that says “Comment Now!” Follow the instructions when you reach the new page and provide your story. Be as specific as possible as to how these proposed changes would impact you. Please take the time to do this, even if you only write a couple of paragraphs. 

I believe we all have the right to expect that what our doctor thinks is best for us should be allowed, and politicians and negative press should not dictate our medical care. We should not be allowed to suffer because there are addicts and criminals who abuse medications - we are not the cause of it nor will they stop if we are cut off from our legitimate prescriptions. It is unfair, unethical, and cruel to tell us that even though there are medications which can improve our lives and alleviate our pain, we are not allowed to have them.

PLEASE read the specifics about the FDA issues to be discussed at that meeting next week, and then tell them your story. 

The NFMCPA also requests that you send a copy of your story to them at info@fmcpaware.org to help combine our efforts with theirs.

We, as chronic pain patients, must now more than ever stand together.

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Articles & editorials you should read on these FDA issues:

~Painkiller Paradox: Feds Struggle To Control Drugs That Help And Harm (from NPR)

~FDA Action on Vicodin May Mean More Pain, Not Less Addiction or Overdose (from Time Magazine)

~Restricting Vicodin is the wrong Rx: Reclassifying it and other such drugs could make it hard for those with chronic pain to get 

(from the Los Angeles Times)