Day: 08/15/2015

Is it time to legalize marijuana in sports?

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/aug/01/marijuana-sports-opioids-arguments-kyle-turley/

Kyle Turley was watching one of those commercials earlier this year when he decided enough was enough. He was done with synthetic drugs.

A decade-long NFL career left the former San Diego State All-American offensive tackle with a multitude of health issues. Turley’s football injuries broke his body, but he’s also convinced that football did irreparable damage to his brain. He’s struggled with anxiety, headaches, depression and rage issues. In an interview with the Union-Tribune in 2013, he even admitted to having entertained suicide.

To help him deal with his ailments, Turley’s doctors have prescribed a multitude of painkillers, psych meds and muscle relaxants over the years.

Depakote. Wellbutrin. Zoloft. Flexeril. Percocet. Vicodin. Toradol. Vioxx.

You don’t need to know what each of these drugs is designed to do. The point is that dating back to when he blew out his knee at SDSU in 1996, Turley has been on them all at some point, often in different prescribed combinations, over a period that spans almost 20 years.

That ended in February when Turley decided to free himself of all prescription medications and use only marijuana – a move he credits with saving his life…

With California’s liberal medical marijuana policies, access to marijuana was one of the reasons Turley uprooted his family from Nashville, Tenn. back to his hometown of Riverside last April.

Since weaning himself off all prescription drugs three months ago and transitioning solely to medicinal marijuana, Turley has noticed a “night and day difference in his psyche.” He no longer suffers from low testosterone, his libido is back, and his anxiety issues have improved.

“I don’t have as bad depression any more, that’s getting better. The cognitive impairment seems to be getting a little bit better. Life is more manageable, I have more energy and feel more alive,” Turley said. “I don’t think about killing myself any more. Suicidal thoughts and tendencies were part of my daily living.

“At the end of the day, I was losing hope with the synthetic drugs and now I feel better. It’s giving me hope again, helping with depression and anxiety.” …

PDMP includes drugs on Schedules II through V

http://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=11366

Connecticut’s Prescription Monitoring Program, run by the state Department of Consumer Protection, was established in 2008…

The latest change in the program will be implemented on Oct. 1, when Connecticut doctors will be required to check the database if prescribing more than a 72-hour supply of a drug listed on Schedule II through Schedule V of the federal controlled substance law. Those drugs include stimulants like amphetamines, anabolic steroids, opioids and other narcotics…

Tramadol Side Effects and Withdrawal are Daunting

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2012/03/18/tramadol-side-effects-and-withdrawal-are-daunting/

Under comments:

BILLY — RI, USA, JULY 30, 2015
I was on Tramadol for 12 years. My new Doc decided I didn’t need it and just stopped it. I seemed ok with no withdrawal other than that same pain came back right after stopping and I had a case of the gloom and dooms, I guess I was feeling sad for no good reason for about 2 weeks, then out of the blue I had seizure, I guess it was pretty big one and I had never had one before in my life. To make a long story short. I told the ER Doc about stopping the Tramadol, he suggested I see a lawyer…I did. Dr who cut off script cold turkey settled for 55,000. Lesson is….do not stop cold turkey if you have taken this for years even if you feel ok like I did…

How Identity Theft Sticks You with Hospital Bills

http://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=11379

Fueling medical identity theft is the surge in electronic medical records and data breaches at insurers and health-care providers. Medical identity theft-in which someone fraudulently uses data to bill for medical services-affected 2.3 million adult patients in 2014 versus 1.4 million in 2009, according to a survey published in February by the Ponemon Institute LLC, a research concern.

Such identity theft has led about 40 companies, including Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and Aetna Inc., to form the Medical Identity Fraud Alliance. Some hospitals have turned to biometric screening to confirm patient identities…

“Data breaches are increasing and becoming more common,” says Dr. Shantanu Agrawal, director of the Center for Program Integrity at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “You can end up with diagnoses being placed in your file without your knowledge.” …

Unlike in financial identity theft, health identity-theft victims can remain on the hook for payment because there is no health-care equivalent of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which limits consumers’ monetary losses if someone uses their credit information…

Thieves use many ways to acquire numbers for Social Security, private insurance, Medicare and Medicaid. Some are stolen in data breaches and sold on the black market. Such data are especially valuable, sometimes selling for about $50 compared with $6 or $7 for a credit-card number, law-enforcement officials estimate. A big reason is that medical-identification information can’t be quickly canceled like credit cards…

Hospitals are setting up special investigative units to catch medical identity fraud. BayCare Health System, which has hospitals in Florida, is one of hundreds of hospitals that give patients the option to register by scanning veins in the palm. The image is converted into a number that correlates with the patient’s medical record, according to its website…

Some victims say the problems from medical identity theft haunted them for years.

Anndorie Cromar, now a 36-year-old medical-lab supervisor in Salt Lake City, says Utah’s child-protective services called her in 2006 to say her newborn had tested positive for methamphetamine at Alta View Hospital in Sandy, Utah.

Ms. Cromar hadn’t given birth then. Someone had stolen her identification, gone into labor, delivered a baby girl and left the infant at the hospital. The case grabbed headlines at the time, but few knew the ordeal took years to straighten out.

She says she was never able to fully settle the hospital bill the thief had racked up and eventually charged it off when she filed for bankruptcy for unrelated reasons. For months, she continued to get appointment reminders for the baby. She wasn’t able to view her own full medical records because they now contained the thief’s health information. She says she also had to go to court to get her name taken off the baby’s birth certificate.

An Alta View spokesman declines to comment, saying the hospital didn’t have an updated privacy form signed by Ms. Cromar. The Utah Division of Child and Family Services declines to comment.

“To this day, I don’t know if my name is in the baby’s medical record,” Ms. Cromar says. “It’s insidious.”