It is completely normal to become physically dependent on medication and go through withdrawal from its absence. Withdrawal from opioids is most stigmatized, but many drugs cause this unpleasant effect. Anti-depressants come to mind, as well as the everyday cup of coffee.

Withdrawal is, of course, unpleasant and to be avoided when on a drug that causes it. For people on regular prescriptions causing withdrawal, they can fill a prescription early to ensure they do not run out. Not people on opioid prescriptions. You have to be constantly aware of your supply and when you can get a refill. However, nothing ever goes perfectly and something always happens eventually. For me, it was a pharmacy policy I was unaware of because I had recently switched from CVS to Walgreens after having enough of CVS. Walgreens is only marginally better.

A few weeks ago, I went through withdrawal for completely unnecessary reasons. Avoidable reasons. Walgreens deleted the last refill from a previous script when my doctor sent new ones in. I told him I had a refill left and to date it for May not April. I didn’t know that was apparently a big mistake.

Opioids have a different set of rules than other drugs. Limits on refills, and when you can refill them. It is a ridiculous rigamarole that does not save lives. I’ve lost people to the current crisis of illicit fentanyl in heroin. I know what it’s like. None of my family members died getting a hold of legally prescribed tramadol.

These are misguided, outdated, and ass-backward rules that punish those in pain and pretend to help those suffering with addiction. Security theater, that’s all it is.

So when I found out my prescription was deleted and I had no tramadol for April, it was after 4pm on Thursday. My pain clinic is only open Monday to Thursday. I couldn’t contact my doctor until Monday. I had extra pills because I saved some for flares or emergencies, and I assumed I would get my RX fixed on Monday. I didn’t realize my doctor would be out and I had to wait another day.

Inevitably, I ran out.

Withdrawal for me starts like restless leg syndrome, only all over the body. You can’t stop needing to move. It meant that night I only got snippets of sleep, the longest being an hour. It’s exhausting, painful, and disorienting.

The worst of my symptoms were Monday night to Tuesday. Thankfully, my doctor filled the prescription immediately and my mom got it right away. Still, almost 12 hours of withdrawal symptoms took its toll.

I felt like I had exercised too much from the constant tossing and turning. I couldn’t think straight for the whole day afterward. My brain was muddled. The absence of one simple pill caused so much havoc. And, of course, it also meant my regular pain levels were higher, it just wasn’t always so noticeable from the overwhelming withdrawal symptoms.

I’m a pain patient and because of how tramadol is classified, I’m not allowed to get my RX early. But if I had been able to, I could have caught the problem before my pain clinic closed for the weekend. I wasn’t allowed that chance. Instead, we are expected to run up to the end of a prescription before getting another. A problem just has to happen on the weekend to be devastating.

I live with the constant threat that my medication could be taken away and I have to go through withdrawal again. Worse would be the pain I could no longer quell and would restrict my life even more. Doctors will slowly taper you on any other prescription that causes withdrawal, but opioids are the exception because of addiction stigma.

I’m not the first or last patient to be forcibly withdrawn from my medication because of the stigma surrounding it. In all likelihood, something like this will happen again. I’m just fortunate to have my medication back. Too many pain patients are not, and it needs to stop. We must return to a humane way of treating pain.

Furthermore, we expect addicts to go through withdrawal almost as penance for their addiction. Drugs exist to make the symptoms easier, but they are not so easily accessible to those who need them. If the object is to save lives, then easing withdrawal symptoms should be a goal for addiction treatment.

No one should be forced to go through withdrawal or suffer needless pain. 

This shouldn’t be a radical concept.