An estimated 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain.
An estimated 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. hsyncoban/Getty

In 2017, over 70,000 people died from overdoses in the U.S., and over half of those deaths involved opioids. According to the National Institutes of Drug Abuse, each day, at least 130 Americans die from prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids like fentanyl. It’s a major problem, and one that has been felt in all corners of the country, from the streets of Seattle to trailer parks in West Virginia to the biggest homes in Hollywood or Paisley Park.

The opioid epidemic has been declared a national emergency, the makers of Oxycontin are in court, and public health experts and community leaders are scrambling to figure out how to address this crisis. But there’s another population that is suffering due to the opioid crisis, and that’s pain patients themselves.

On Wednesday, pain patients gathered in Olympia for a rally near the Capitol to raise awareness about this issue, as KNKX’s Will Stone first reported. This was part of a nationwide series of protests organized by the group Don't Punish Pain, and one of the protesters in Olympia was Maria Higgenbotham, a Washington resident who suffers from a degenerative disc disorder and has had 12 surgeries on her spine since 2003.

Higgenbotham wrote about her experience with pain in the Tacoma News Tribune: “My back has never truly recovered and continues to degenerate, and I have been diagnosed with several other incurable painful diseases. But I had a life thanks to my pain management doctor, who after trying all available alternatives, prescribed opioids to dull my pain.”

Opioids allowed Higgenbotham to live somewhat of a normal life despite crippling pain, but last year, she says she was informed by her doctor that he was going to reduce her pain medication by 75 percent in order to bring her within guidelines recommended by the CDC. These guidelines are voluntary and designed to address the opioid crisis, but Higgenbotham says that her doctor, and others like him, are reducing opioids dosage for fear of losing their licenses.

Without the appropriate dosing, she wrote, “I am almost completely bedridden. I am a burden on my friends and family, who have to help me with almost everything I do. My doctor is empathetic and believes I need the medication. He also knows I have followed every one of the clinic’s rules. I have never abused my medication and I store it safely. But he feels like the risk of liability is too high if he continues to prescribe me a higher dose.”

She is not alone. An estimated 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, and that includes 20 million with pain severe enough to limit their daily activities. That's 8 percent of the adult population in the U.S.

Medicaid and some other insurance providers have policies that force the reduction of pain medications, and across the U.S., clinicians are under pressure to limit or reduce their opioid prescribing. This is seen by some in public health as a correction to decades of over-prescription, but there’s collateral damage here: patients like Maria Higgenbotham and others who need opioids just to function.