Jul 18, 2006 By: Lilly Anderson Fortwayne.com

It’s a shame narcotics have received such a bad rap.

Frank Gray mentioned in a column July 9 that some Hurricane Katrina volunteers – well intentioned, I’m sure – persuaded a woman who had broken her back to go off narcotic painkillers because they were, well, narcotics. The woman later used too many non-narcotic painkillers, and her baby was put in the foster care system.

Such a tragedy could be prevented if people understood that OxyContin and other narcotic medicines are just that: medicine. Just because lawbreakers abuse prescription drugs and wreak havoc on society doesn’t mean that patients who need them to allay chronic, excruciating pain shouldn’t sometimes use narcotics. The thing about narcotics is that if you have pain, you don’t get high – you just get some relief from the pain.

My brother has been taking OxyContin for several years because he has spinal stenosis, the result of degenerative disc disease. But, mind you, it wasn’t easy for him to get the relief he desperately needed.

He had back surgery – which was unsuccessful – a decade ago and continued to feel a hot, burning pain down his leg and into the sole of his foot that felt, as he has described it, like a burning knife plunged into his foot. This pain is the result of pressure on the sciatic nerve that runs from the spine down the leg.

Tom was able to work for a while despite the pain, because he could find relief by changing his body position. But Tom was a salesman, and eventually the constant pain kept him from being able to sell. His job was to show mobile homes and close the deals, and at first he was able to fake feeling OK with his natural charm along with relying on couches in the trailers to sit on while his prospects looked around. He’d have to get up after a few minutes, though, because the pain from sitting would become unbearable.

It took years and several lawyers to convince the Social Security Administration that he simply could not work. Eventually he was able to take disability.

It was just as hard getting the pain medication that has finally made life somewhat bearable. I say somewhat, because he continues to feel that burning torch in his foot when the medicine begins to wear off. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not easy to get a prescription for narcotic painkillers, even when you have severe pain. After seeing doctor after doctor in his hometown of Rock Hill, S.C., Tom saw doctors in Charlotte, N.C., and finally at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he got an appointment with a pain management specialist. The doctor prescribed OxyContin, now called “hillbilly heroin” because of its illegal use by people who buy it on the black market to get high.

Tom is no longer a candidate for surgery. So without OxyContin, he would probably be in a nursing home rather than spending his time at his home and at the apartment of my 85-year-old mother, who takes care of him as much as he helps her.

The next time you read about a drug bust for “hillbilly heroin,” remember that narcotic painkillers were invented and are used to make life bearable for patients like my brother and the woman in Gray’s column. Lilly Anderson is a copy editor for The Journal Gazette.