Author of The Painful Truth
Most people in pain do not like talking about their pain problem with others. When they do mention it to friends and family, they generally are disappointed at the responses. People are well intended, at least initially, but they can be insensitive. Fundamentally, they fail to understand what someone in pain is experiencing, so they can only provide a limited amount of support.
According to Penney Cowan, Founder and CEO of the Founder and CEO of the American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA), “More than 29.5 million Americans suffer from migraines, with women being affected three times more often than men.”
Contrary to the popular misconception, a migraine isn’t just a severe headache. According to the ACPA, a migraine can cause intense throbbing or pulsing in one area of the head and is commonly accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. Migraine attacks can cause significant pain for hours, or days, and be so severe that all a migraine sufferer can think about is finding a dark, quiet place to lie down. Some migraines are preceded or accompanied by sensory warning symptoms (aura) such as flashes of light, blind spots, or tingling in the arm or leg.
The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) is the watchdog agency that’s responsible for testing new medications before they are approved. Drug manufacturers seek approval from the FDA after they have conducted numerous clinical trials and submitted all of their data to the FDA for review. Drugs are approved only if the FDA believes the data supports the efficacy for the targeted indication and that the drugs’ risks are reasonable and manageable.
In the February 19, 2018 Refinery29 documentary, producer Jacki Huntington shares the stories of Dr. Lipi Roy, Kassandra Frederique of the Drug Policy Alliance, and Cortney Lovell. These women are working to solve the opioid crisis through their work in addiction medicine, drug policy, and recovery services.
In an accompanying essay, Cortney Lovell courageously tells her story of trying to escape the grip of addiction. Lovell has been in recovery for heroin addiction for ten years, and she understands the tremendous effort and frustration that goes into reentering society while bearing the stigma of addiction and a record of incarceration.
“Babies Born Addicted,” “Addicted Babies,” “Babies with Addiction,” and similar headlines appear nearly daily in the media. This is because babies exhibit horrible withdrawal symptoms if they are born physically dependent on opioids, and it pulls at our heartstrings to see them suffer. But it misleads media consumers, policymakers, and family members into believing the newborns are addicted. They confuse signs of withdrawal with opioid addiction.
Confusion is understandable. Yet the fact is that babies cannot be born addicted to drugs, and they don’t deserve the stigma that accompanies the label.