You missed a major sentence in this article:

Walmart will follow state laws for those which require opioid prescriptions to be filled for less than seven days.

So this does not apply to chronic pain patients. This applies to people who are getting opioids for things like dental work, or a minor surgery, etc. This is the same thing CVS did about a year or so back. So they won't fill a month worth of vicodin for having wisdom teeth pulled. No need to ring the alarm bells here.

I have never seen someone get a month supply of Vicodin for having a tooth pulled. I think I got a few days worth of Darvocet in 2010 when I had a tooth pulled and I ended up using the NSAID's more often than I did the Darvocet. I maybe used the Darvocet twice because I didn't need it. I also had major surgery on my face at age 15, had my jaw wired shut for a month. All they gave me was liquid Demerol. I was in pain but barely used the Demerol. That was back in 1988. I don't see where people are getting a months worth of meds for trivial pain.

Also, what if someone has a broken arm or leg? They will surely need more than a weeks worth of pain meds? Also, they didn't mention anything about chronic pain patients. They could have stated that, if you are a chronic pain patient in pain management, then you will not be subject to these rules. When the public reads this article, they are being misled. The 50 milligram morphine equivalent is also wrong. There is a 50-89 mgs a day morphine milligram equivalent. Not just a straight 50. They also need to state that these rules are only for a general practitioner.

What gets me is that my very own pain management doctor keeps telling me that I don't need him. He can't do anything more for me since my pain is vascular in nature. He said I'm on such a low dose of pain medication that my GP should take over my care. Yet my PCP will not write anymore pain meds since the new guidelines came out. My insurance company is paying 200 a month to the pain doctor when I do not need him. I'm just saying there is a lot of confusion and misinformation when it comes to this law. Also, what happens when someone has a major surgery and will be on meds for 3 months, yet they are not a chronic pain patient.

I do agree that they should not prescribe a months worth of pain meds for a pulled tooth. But I have never ever seen anyone prescribed that much medicine for a pulled tooth. My friend had a broken arm and they prescribed him a 30 day supply of Vicodin. He used it up and never got addicted. I'm not sounding alarm bells, Just saying it will be harder for chronic pain patients now because there is too much confusion out there. CVS did the same thing and many of their chronic pain customers left. I switched to a small grocery store chain pharmacy. I actually took OCP's advice and talked to the pharmacist before I switched all of my scripts over. They were so happy to have me and my 9 scripts a month.

I never though a pharmacist would actually listen to me. They said as long as I am in pain management, they had no problem filling my scripts. They treat me like a human being. They even "hold" my 105 Norco a month for me so that they never run out since I am a regular customer. They don't play any games with me like CVS did. They never once questioned me for using Norco or looked down on me. It actually restored my faith in Pharmacists. I just take issue when the rules are being misused. Like the rule that you can technically fill a 30 day Narcotic script up to five days early. Yet even my current pharmacy will wait until the 30 day mark, despite the fact that my insurance company does not stipulate this. Thee rule says I can get my script 5 days early, but they still let the extra five days play out. The rules are not used properly, or uniformly across multiple pharmacies. That makes for a lot of confusion and abuse.

I wish they would just give true chronic pain patients a card like a driver's license and then create special government pharmacies where we go for our pain meds. Pharmacies where they already know our cases and do not give us any problems. Then the regular pharmacies can fill the weeks worth of meds for pulled teeth and minor stuff. This would work well. But there are still a number of CPP's who do not have a diagnosis or provable pain through objective medical testing. So, even having a CPP validation card system will cause problems. Some pain caused my autoimmune disease cannot be pinpointed on medical tests. But I would tent to believe a person who has multiple diseases and on many medications to be validated in receiving treatment for chronic pain.

I'm fairly certain they are referring to Opioids Prescription for "Acute Pain" needs and Guidelines. Why they didn't specify that I don't know, but the CDC is not on a 50mg Morphine equivalent for Chronic Pain use, its a 90mg Morphine equivalent per day if prescribed by a Dr. other than a Certified Pain Management Dr.

What their describing in the article are "Acute Pain" Guidelines.

And no, when you break an Arm or a Leg you don't need weeks worth of pain meds, usually you get 3 - 5 days and go on NSAIDS and/or Acetaminophen from that point on. Studies have proven its just as effective for pain. My son broke his arm playing football a couple of years ago and he didn't get any narcotics. People that think they need to be on Narcotics for weeks or a month for Acute Pain are the ones who end up getting addicted to the crap because they never needed it that long in the first place and have put those of us who have Legitimate Longterm Chronic Pain in a battle for pain meds.

25 years ago after my first 3 of 30 Surgeries, I went home with a week's worth of Percocet, after I got out of the hospital and after that week got a funky combo of strong NSAIDS and muscle relaxers, that was it, we didn't even have Ibuprofen yet. The first 2 surgeries, 1 on each knee, I had the front of my knees sliced open, 4" wide, my patella disconnected, the tendons shortened, broken degenerative cartilage removed my patella reconnected and everything sewed back up. The 3rd was a revision on the left because of infection.

No Oxy or Morphine or Fentanyl to go home on, you didn't get those kinds of drugs outside of a hospital and you didn't get months worth of refills on narcotics. Pain Management was Physical Therapy and totally different classes of medications unless you were terminal and getting palliative care.

Pain Management has changed due to the abuse of pain meds, by patients and Dr.'s who wrote scripts for stuff that never should have been written, pill mills that were just in it for the money. There is plenty of fault on both sides. But its not going to go back, people need to realize that and quit fighting it. When you have 50,000 - 60,000 people overdosing on prescription narcotics in a year, there's a problem and its not going to go back to the way it was. The laws are going to be strict and until Dr.'s find a new comfort level, its going to be hard to get Narcotic meds unless you have a Diagnosis, a Provable Need and a Spotless Medical History and even then, dosages aren't going to be what people think they need.

When you've got people taking 400mg of Morphine and 120mg of Oxy as a breakthru med and still complaining about pain with a Diagnosis that doesn't make any sense for that kind of pain, (and we had people on this board in the past as such) the odds are it's not real pain. You've overloaded your neuro and pain receptors with so much narcotic they don't function anymore, your brain has lost the ability to tell what's real pain and whats referred pain from the overload of narcotics. and the only way to fix it is to stop the drugs and let your brain re-set.

There were major problems with the way things were done. There are problems with the new way things are being done. Hopefully some of this will calm down and a realistic system will be created, but it's not going to be anytime soon. Not when you've got cops getting sick from exposure to Fentanyl laced crack and addicts overdosing from prescription narcotics. Its not rocket science, many of us have been on this Board or others long enough, we've seen plenty of folks troll through with drug seeking behavior trying to figure out how to get red flags off their record or hop from one Dr. to another. When the strictness of the System weeds those idiots out, then maybe it will settle down so the real Chronic Pain patients can get the help they need....that's the hope.

They are still counting the overdoses of heroin with the overdoses of opioids too. That is another misleading fact. Just because a heroin addict dies of an overdose and had some pain pills in their system, it doesn't mean that the pain pills killed them. You know 50 thousand people die each year from PE blood clots, and no one is on a crusade to save those people. There are some people who have been on large amounts of pain meds at stable doses for years and they are working. Everyone's body is different. Some conditions are worse than others like having CRPS and RSD. Some people can manage on lower doses of meds with activity modifications. Some people can be fixed with surgeries, but are denied such surgeries.

I never used pain meds more than a few days. I never liked them. I watched a special on television that shows how some of us are hardwired to become addicted to food like me, and others to meds. I just wish they would clarify things a little bit better. Eventually the political climate will change and the country will find something else to focus on. What I would like to know is the true overdose rates for patients who are seeing a pain management doctor long term. They still need to differentiate between chronic pain patients and those not on pain when they calculate overdoses. Also, there are still autoimmune diseases out there that can cause extreme pain and yet show no damage on medical testing.

I have learned recently that no amount of meds are going to make me pain free. This is another hard one to swallow for a lot of CPP. But where do we draw the line at dosage levels for everyone? A level 5 pain, a level 2 pain, a level 8 pain? The problem is that we are all different biologically. No one size can fit everyone out here. Then they are giving the addicts everything they want. Free Narcan, places to inject heroin in NYC now, free rehabilitation, free needles, free methadone with no discrimination like pain patients have. Bend over backwards for an addict, but leave real people in pain to suffer. I might even try and get a month script of meds from Wal-Mart just to see what they do and report back here. I want to see if they will even take on a patient who is in pain management. I do agree that we need a realistic system. Especially for those of us who use our meds sparingly and follow the rules. When everyone is in a knee-jerk reaction, cooler heads never prevail.

I meant to say I never took pain meds for more than a few days prior to leg injury.

When it comes to coroner's each area is different. Some areas don't require the person in charge of determining how person died to be a doctor. Or to have any medical training. I know it makes no sense. But it's true.

Unfortunately, some coroner's as well as doctors rule a death a drug overdose if the person has a prescription for an opiate. They don't do drug screens or autopsies like they should.

Jeremy, its called "Pain Management" for a reason, it's not called "Pain Make it go Completely Away" because 75% of Chronic Pain patients cannot be cured of pain completely, regardless of the treatment. You get to a level of Pain you can live with and you learn to live your life. You use multiple modalities of Therapies, not just large doses of Narcotics, and you manage your pain.

Some of us have been doing it for 30+ years....

Your throwing statistics around for People with Clots, and various conditions, etc. that have nothing to do with the topic of Narcotic use, Overdose and Addicts. Your saying people can be fixed with surgeries but are being denied surgeries....where did you get that information? If a person has a condition that can be surgically repaired and improved and they have insurance or the means to pay for that surgery, in the U.S. they wouldn't be denied that Surgery.

Are there programs for Addicts, yes, they want them to stop being addicts....do the programs you're talking about exist everywhere....No, not hardly.

Your blurring the Topic of this post with all this other stuff.

WOW! I relate completely. I stopped Pain management in January because I was trying more natural ways to ease my pain. CBD oil worked along with the CBD cream and medical marijuana. I was able to walk a mile everyday, clean house, do laundry and cook dinner every night. I have Osteo and Rheumatoid Arthritis, Hip bursitis, I'm also diabetic with neuropathy.
Recently, diagnosed with degenerative disc disease, four herniated discs (one of which has pinched a nerve in shoulder down to my elbow,) the pain of which is unbearable. I haven't slept more than 3 hrs a night in 2 weeks!
Went to ER late one night crying and nauseous the pain was so bad. They never x-rayed my shoulder or gave me MRI. ER Doc gave me a script for ten 5mg Valium and twenty 5mg Oxycodone. They did nothing for the pain. My PC Doc prescribed Tramadol which didn't help either. So, I went back to pain management and he can no longer write morphine and Oxycodone for breakthrough pain, but did send script to Wal-Mart for Methadone which Wal-Mart would not fill. ??????? WTH?
I go for an x-ray this morning for cervical spine. Then insurance will pay for MRI. In the meantime I have to wait a month for shoulder injection. Go figure. Suffering another month like this? Why?

Did you ask Wal-Mart when they started staffing Dr.'s in their Pharmacy who knew more about your Medical Conditions and Medical History then your Dr. did so they could refuse to fill your medications? That's what I would have done, I then would have called the local news and told them about it, but that's just me.

I can't say this enough times, pick a pharmacy, that will fill your scripts and make an appointment to sit down and talk to the pharmacist about you, your meds and your illness. Finding and interviewing a Pharmacist is just as important as doing so with your Dr...no days maybe more so.

i've had the same pharmacist for 20 years, I've never not had a prescription filled, I've never had anyone look at me funny, or had a med not ordered, i have pictures of her children on my fridge. Finding and interviewing your healthcare team and creating a relationship with them, even in this busy world, is really important.

I'd go to the Manager of Wal-mart, nicely ask him his name, tell him you want to spell it right and when he asks why? Say, well when I call the news to explain that your pharmacy wouldn't fill the prescription my Dr. sent here for a Chronic Debilitating medical condition I've had for years, I want to make sure they get it right, have a nice day. You don't have to just let people walk all over you and take it.

Oh and if they refuse to fill the script, they have to give it to you, so you can take it to another pharmacy, so go and get your script from them.