this is an open letter to "Steingard & Testa Medical Associates" located in south philly. Please everyone **reshare** this so it reaches as many as possible. This doctor was my doctor of 5 years and was so cruel and self serving they pushed me to severe risk and trauma because they refused to help me when I needed medical attention most...

While i am very sympathetic to the opiate epidemic and do agree we need to solve it, the problem is the current approach makes it much much worse, let me relay my own expiernce to tell you why.

I recently had a very severe disc herniation. Much of the time i cant make it even one step away from my bed. I needed some sort of pain killer to help until it could be resolved, i also tried all the alternatives first, NSAID, steroids, ice, etc. NSAID did almost nothing for the extreme pain and steroids helped a lot but I wasnt allowed to stay on them for more than a week and the second i was off them I was worse then when I started. I needed some sort of pain medications or else my life felt like constant and literal physical torture.

So I approached my doctor of 5 years, he knew well that I have never asked for any scheduled drug of any kind. In fact the few times he offered Adderall i refused (for my ADHD). He flat out refused me any pain medications because he said i had to pass a drug test to get them, well i live in Holland and only stopped by america to pick something up and got stuck there. I told him "I would pass on all drugs but marijuana, but it was legal where i smoked it". Hearing that he refused me any medication and told me he could not since i couldn't pass a drug test.

Later in dire pain i called the office and begged and pleaded in tears. On the spot he dropped me as a patient all together and told me i could not be seen by him again (in the middle of a major injury). I then went on to call at least 20 doctors to get help and they all said under no circumstances would a new patient be prescribed a controlled substance. Now keep in mind i had an MRI and an X-ray to confirm the severity of my condition.

Now all i really needed or wanted was Tylenol II (basically Acetaminophen + codeine). While it is an opiate it is the absolute weakest form of opiate you can get. Since I was refused, and since i will not accept others abusing me or telling me what i can or cant do with my own body, my only solution was to scavenge drugs. I called every drug addict and family member i knew to try to get some pain killers to help. I finally got a nice collection together but since all drug users want are the strong things like morphine, oxycodon and hydrocodone all i had was a pile of stuff 10x - 100x stronger and more addictive than i needed. I did manage to get 4 codeine pills but they only last 4 hours each so that only held me over for a day.

In the end due to a pathetic attempt to address the drug epidemic they forced a non-addicted suffering patient to take drugs far riskier and more addictive than needed and drastically increased my risk of addiction, all in the ironically vain attempt to prevent my addiction.

Luckily as of yesterday I managed to reduce my swelling through use of a ketogenic diet enough that the pain is lessened and I stopped taking morphine. 2 days in with no morphine and I am not addicted, but I am one of the lucky few who isn't very easily addicted.

Long story short it NEVER pays to dictate what people can do with their own body, even drugs. Provide advice and support and leave the power with the individual.