My name is Gary. I'll be 57 this year. I've been living with chronic pain for around 30 years.
My name's Steven Rose. I'm a proud Gunditjmara man. I've had chronic pain for 22 years
I'm Dr Hester Wilson. I'm a GP and addiction specialist, working in Sydney.
I'm Pene Wood. I'm a pharmacist. I work in Aboriginal Health for Wathaurong in Geelong.
How did you start taking opioids?
How did my journey with pain start?
How should opioids be ceased?
What are the alternatives to opioids for chronic pain?
I had a series of back injuries. This pain is constant, like someone's got a hot knife and slicing me in places. it's a sharp pain
It's a sharp pain. It's there all the time. I'll live with the 24/7. what's the worst thing about it
(off camera) What's the worst thing about it?
I have no life.
Literally, chronic pain is a drain. This kind of pain stops me from interacting with my family,
stops me going on on things that people would take for granted like outings.
I feel degraded about being in a wheelchair now. I feel that there is a big stigma about chronic pain.
People judge you on what they see. They can't look inside me. They can't feel what I'm going through.
Yep, yep i get put on the fat and lazy
and I'd love to be working.
Yeah I was on the opioids really heavy for the first two years
I started taking opioids 22 years ago. No i got them prescribed from your doctor
I am dependent on the opioids. If i didn't take them, I wouldn't be getting out of bed.
An opioid medication, how it works is it blocks the message of pain getting to your brain so it
doesn't take away the pain, it doesn't fix the tissue injury. The other issue is tolerance so
your body can get used to the opioids and what you can find can happen is you need
more and more and more to get the same effect and all of a sudden you're on a massive dose
so it can be quite dangerous
When I was really, really bad with the back pain
I would take up to 10 to 15 heavy opioids and then wash that down with a bottle of scotch or rum
and still feel the pain. I'd be lying on the ground and pain still.
There are some really important risks of using opioids in non-cancer pain,
chronic pain. The first thing is that in themselves they have side effects so can make you nauseous
can make you constipated, can make you quite sleepy
You'd, you never take enough it doesn't stop the
pain I found I would always feel the pain in the back of my head even though I'd be really groggy
I'd be almost walking sideways in the walls and yet it wasn't actually of dulling the pain
Yeah side effects, you know, I don't get much motivation because it sort of slows you down a bit
So opioids can interfere with the respiratory centres in your brain and stop your breathing.
We know it's really clear that as people increase their dose so does their risk of coming to harm,
particularly overdose.
Being dependent on the opioids it's you know like I know I need them
otherwise I can't walk around but I'd love to where I'm not on them.
Stopping taking opioids can be really challenging. I've talked to a lot of patients and they've said it's been the hardest
thing they've had to do in their their life.
When I stopped taking them, I became angry
because I was in a hell of a lot more pain, so that meant you know I started smoking marijuana
or pot and yeah that sort of didn't help things, so yeah that's why we ended up going back onto
the painkillers, onto the opioids.
Going cold turkey is a terrible thing to do. The shakes,
the sweats.
The best way to assist people to start to cut down to taper and to cease their medications, doing it collaboratively, together, over time, frequent reviews. Lots of support helping them
to look at the other supports they might need to put in place once they start cutting their dose down.
Yes, yes I mean trying to get off the opioids because I'm just over it
So I'm now on a pain patch which is a very low opioid and it gets meted out over a week
That absolutely is evidence for the non-medicine approaches to chronic pain management particularly
I'm talking therapies
The non-medical therapies i have at the moment is still chiropractic.
I see psychology services and psychiatric services because of the trauma of going through all these
injuries and the pain that they've caused.
The best thing that will help me is going to the pool
and walking in the pool to help me lose the weight.
Certainly, Aboriginal medical services are expert
at this, at helping people to access the care they need in a way that is culturally right for them
The group that's helped me at the moment is my local aboriginal health service and it's
like a one-stop shop. They have like an allied health approach and they bring everyone together
and they talk to you and they listen to what your needs are as a person.
My experience in being an Aboriginal man is Aboriginal Health Service. They treat you with respect.
They treat you as a person and not a number and they actually care about you. I can sort
of look back at my ancestors and my elders and see the struggles they went through and
realise you know, what I'm going through is nothing compared to what they went through so that
you know, sort of helps me a bit.
Yeah, I finally feel like yes that at least now i have someone
that will fight for me and talk and do the talking for me
It needs, there needs to be more
than just thinking a pill is going to fix your problem because it's not.
Straight out, it's not
you