By David J. Stewart | March 2019
I ask for your earnest prayers for my on-going health problems since 2004,
and the harassment I am now enduring from President Donald Trump's office. I
am being harassed by the government and my doctors over my pain medications. I feel
overwhelmed lately. It seems like no one cares. The pain doctor dismissed my
pain a couple weeks ago as if it were not even a problem. I am already
preparing a complaint against her with RICO (Regulated Industries Complaint
Organization) in Hawaii. She is incompetent and negligent to dismiss my pain
as frivolous, and that is my complaint. I have taken between 80 to 160 mg
per day of prescription Oxycontin for the past 10 years, and at least 2
Percocet 10/325's per day for break-thru pain, and now all of a sudden this
one stupid so-called “specialist” is recommending that my primary doctor
drastically reduce my pain medications. My doctor has already advised me
that he is going to take her notes into consideration. So I am on my own in
all of this, with no where to turn medically.
I don't have to be a specialist to know that she is a dishonest person, who is going along with a powerful government agenda started in 2016 by President Donald Trump. Read this news article for yourself to see what I am talking about...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/health/opioids-pain-cdc-guidelines.html
Unfortunately, Mr. Trump's ridiculous agenda to reduce pain prescriptions by a whopping one-third by 2021 is causing many chronic pain sufferers (like me) to commit suicide...
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/28/how-the-opioid-crackdown-is-backfiring-752183
https://www.statnews.com/2016/07/15/chronic-pain-opioids-patients
https://healthydebate.ca/personal-health-navigator/doctors-cutting-back-opioids
My doctor is so paranoid that he has required for me to sign a drug contract, each and every single month for the past 2-years! Whether pastor or doctor, we live in a world of cowards today! That is why America is going to Hell, and the thug U.S. government has become so powerful, because Americans have been cowards for so long! The three preceding articles are just a few among thousands you can read. Doctors are over-reacting to the whole thing in fear, because of the government's threats to go after abusive doctors. But how much pain prescribing is considered “abusive”? You cannot force everyone who is suffering in pain into a general group, and apply the same rules to everyone. Since our medical situations and bodies are all different, each patient's pain medication needs ought to be based upon that individual person. The reason why President Trump is doing this is because of the skyrocketing death rate from opioid drugs, in particular Fentanyl, which I will never take again. My doctor prescribed 25 mcg several years ago to me, and it was as close as I ever came to being drunk! I have never drank a drop of alcohol, thank God, but that Fentanyl patch made partially incapacitated. It was scary! I ripped the patch off my arm and told my doctor, forget it! I have NEVER had those kinds of issues with Percocet or Oxycontin.
It doesn't help when loved ones don't understand what I am going through. One of them sincerely said, “Look to the Lord.” Although that is good general advice for anyone, it is not the proper thing to say to someone who is at their whit's end in physical pain and emotional stress because of foolish doctors, who are following some stupid government agenda. You can look to the Lord while committing suicide! I don't care how much you look to the Lord, if you are suffering in chronic pain, you are in a world of hurt, and you need medical treatment! When someone takes away your pain medications, looking to the Lord doesn't take away your physical pain and suffering. So that is a very horrible, uncaring, awful thing to tell someone who is suffering in physical pain. Never tell someone suffering in pain stupid things like: “God lets everything happen for a reason” or “Look to the Lord” or “God works in mysterious ways.” PLEASE DON'T BE STUPID! AND BY THE WAY, SHUT UP! The person meant well who said that to me, but they don't live in constant physical pain, so they don't understand, and I have to be understanding instead. That is not always easy to do, when you feel lonely in pain, because no one understands what you are suffering through, and then your own family doesn't understand either! You'd think if anyone would understand your pain situation, it would be a loved one, but they don't, not at all.
As I type I have stabbing horrible pain radiating down my right leg, and less in my arm. It varies throughout the day. I am being abused by the thug U.S government, scared pain specialist, and my scared local doctor who is already caving in, neither of whom seem to take my person pain needs seriously. Their first and foremost concern is to cover their butts, from legal liability. My doctor has already reduced my Ambien from 10 mg per night down to only 5 mg per night, in response to pressure from the U.S. government's ploy to reduce the opioid death toll (I guess thousands of suicides of chronic pain sufferers doesn't count). They make 10 mg of Ambien for people like me who need it. My doctor has also taken away one of my two daily Percocet 10/325's, which is why I cannot sleep at 3:17 am in the morning, so I am writing this instead, in my suffering. I know the Lord cares, and I have been praying daily about this situation.
If the U.S. government and uncaring doctors take away my prescription pain medications, I will be in a world of hurt. I can understand why people seek out and purchase street drugs. I don't think I would ever do something like that, mainly because I don't want to go to prison, where there are no pain medications. I have heard people say that marijuana helps their pain. I have never smoked a cigarette a day in my life, but I would consider anything that will help alleviate my chronic neck pain. The faithful preacher, Pastor Charles Spurgeon, smoked cigars his entire ministry. I don't think cigarettes are good, not at all. If God wanted us to smoke anything, He would have put a chimney up on top of our head. If you have never suffered in debilitating chronic pain, please do not condemn me for feeling this way. I am against illegal drugs. I am against smoking anything. However, when doctors fail to help people cope with horrible pain, it is not hard to understand why such people would seek out any help they can find. You cannot merely look to God when the people who are supposed to be helping you, AREN'T HELPING YOU. And to make matters worse, the local Baptist church won't even talk to me, wave to me, nor allow me to even sit and listen to preaching in their church, because they despise my King James Bible only stand for THE TRUTH. Really great world we live in, huh? Of course, people have all their seemingly legitimate excuses for mistreating one another. That is the wicked human sin nature. I want off this awful planet so bad!
I am suffering much from bodily afflictions due to my cervical stenosis, radiculitis and osteoarthritis. It is seemingly unbearable at times. I am having difficulty simply keeping up with everything. There are many things I'd like to do in my ministry, like making more YouTube videos of sermons, and adding more MP3 sermons, but I am tired in my body and soul. Now that my pain and sleep medications have been reduced, I am hurting. My doctor is intimidated by the government, the liability, and I understand. My doctor is a good man, a Seventh Day Adventist, but that doesn't help my chronic neck pain. It feels like a horrible toothache 24 hours a day, the size of a baseball in the bony area of the back of my neck. It literally started in one day back in 2004, and has been with me ever since. I've consulted with EIGHT neurosurgeons, two of which I let perform surgery, to no benefit to me. The second surgery made me 100% worse, leaving me with both arms feeling like my veins are filled with air, and both hands feel like I'm wearing invisible gloves, and sharp shooting pain down both arms and legs throughout each day. When I sit down and rise up, the whole right side of my body feels like dead weight. It is a horrible feeling, much worse when doctors (the very people who are supposed to be helping me cope with my pain) abandon me, reducing my pain medications to insufficient levels that don't hardly work. I ask for your earnest daily prayers when you think of me, please!
The burning throughout my body (nerves) is horrible at times. I woke up tonight at 1:17 am, from stabbing pain extending down both arms and legs, especially the left side. I don't know why, but when I am awake during the daytime, the right side of my pain gives me the most trouble, about 80%. However, during the night, the left side of my body is horrible, and it feels like a razorblade cutting across my nerves. The doctors have been prescribing Gabapentin and Lyrica for the past 10 years, but it doesn't help hardly at all. The Lyrica was causing me blackouts, and I was falling asleep standing up for 5-6 hours. I ran into the wall. I fell over onto my pedal steel guitar. I am fortunate that I didn't sustain serious injuries. I took my prescription medications as directed by the doctor and pharmacy on the bottle's label. DOCTOR'S WILL KILL YOU! That is how singer Whitney Houston died in 2012. She took some prescription meds, blacked out and sunk into her bathtub, where she drowned. I would have drowned too if I had been in a tub of water. So I refused to take Lyrica anymore.
My doctor is threatening me now. He has twice so far refused to be my doctor anymore unless I subject myself to other medical treatments, which I have already undergone, which were worthless, and didn't help me at all. It's a big racket! Now they want me to subject myself to physical therapy AGAIN. I suffered through 5 months of that torture and nonsense. They gave me an electric battery-powered box that buzzes on my neck, as a pain alternative. I THREW IT INTO MY GARBAGE PAIL WHERE IT BELONGS! I paid $100 for that crap! That is the insanity of doctors today! Kindly, they surely do earn the derogatory title of QUACKS! Another doctor sent me to a chiropractor, who handed me a donut-shaped magnet to hang around my neck, to help alleviate my pain. THAT WENT INTO MY GARBAGE PAIL TOO, WHERE IT BELONGS! Magnets don't alleviate chronic pain! You're an idiot if you think it does, as much as the idiot doctor who insults you by handing it to you in the first place. Folks, nothing helps alleviate pain like good ole pain medications, which is why GOD GAVE US OPIUM! Is that so hard to figure out? The people dying from opioids are ABUSING DRUGS AND ALCOHOL! That is how actor Heath Ledger died in 2008, from illegally taking a cocktail of prescription drugs that he had no business taking!
Anyway, it's difficult just to get by from day-to-day. It all comes from my neck. As I type, the toothache-like pain in my neck is terrible and there's nothing I can do. The pain radiates into my facial area. The dull, aching, pain behind my eyes is awful. The entire facial area is sore. In 2011, I was taking 160 mg per day of prescription Oxycontin for chronic pain, and no one complained at all!!! Now in 2019, they've got me down to 80 mg per day and they're still complaining. The Lord is my refuge and my strength! Psalms 27:1, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
People just don't understand. I try to force myself to go places and do things, but it is difficult. I feel overwhelmed. I look fine outwardly, but inwardly I am physically hurting horribly. My former wife cruelly abandoned and divorced me 13 years ago, and I seriously doubt if I'll ever have a girlfriend or be married again, simply because I cannot find a wife anywhere. I have looked high and low, but there is no one. And of course, she would have to be someone that can get along with me, not a sassy brat with a big mouth, who thinks she knows it all, like my x-wife. Proverbs 31:10-12, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. I once found such a woman at Hyles-Anderson College, but she married another man, and it haunts me to this day. She was voted Miss Highlander, but I foolishly didn't reach out to her. The curse of my life has been my fear of simply telling others how I feel. If you understand that, you'll then understand why I have such a big mouth in cyberspace, I am tired of being silent. I have something to say now! I have never been blessed with a Proverbs 31 wife. Most women today are a Genesis 3 woman, destroying her own family.
And may I say, kindly, a Proverbs 31 woman doesn't just happen, she works hard at becoming that type of Christian woman. The same is true of a godly man. No one accidentally or haphazardly becomes a person of great character, love and commitment. No one becomes a moral lighthouse, with a solid Bible faith that others can look up to and emulate. It all begins with baby steps! You start by hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” I once heard Dr. Wendell Evans, President of Hyles Anderson College, make a tremendous statement during chapel that I have never forgotten. Dr. Evans said, “Pretend that you are a good Christian and eventually you'll become one!” I love that! If you want to become a Proverbs 31 woman ladies, pretend to be one and one day you'll realize that you have become one. If you want to become a soulwinner, start sharing the Gospel with people around you, and you WILL become a successful soulwinner eventually! Amen!
I suffer continually in pain of soul and body...
“Currently there is no proven treatment to prevent or cure neuropathic pain (neuropathy or nerve pain). Instead, the primary goals of treatment are to reduce the pain as much as possible, balance the negative side effects of the treatment, and help patients manage any unresolved pain.”
I have to lie each month on the Pfizer drug form that my doctor gives me. Yes, I admit, I am compelled to lie! The form asks me if I am depressed, tired, unsocial, lonely, sad, irritable, stressed, unable to sleep and have thoughts of suicide. I have to put down that my life is just wonderful, and I smell daffodils every morning, and life couldn't be better, or else he'll deny me pain medications if I score too high on the stupid form. That is Pfizer's cute (legal bull crap) way of screening patients for potential suicide candidates, who are at risk from taking the drugs that they manufacture and sell. SO DOCTORS FORCE PATIENTS TO LIE TO GET THEIR DESPERATELY NEEDED PAIN MEDICATIONS!!! That way if you actually commit suicide, the doctor can BLAME YOU, because you lied on the questionnaire form. Aren't doctors such wonderful people? They all belong in prison with the drug companies! What a lousy medical system! My doctor is just doing what he was trained to do, which is cover his butt with a bunch of legal forms that I have to sign, which prevents me from being totally honest and telling him how I really feel, or else he won't give me the pain mediations that I desperately need. I'm going to use a popular word in our American culture today... THIS ALL REALLY SUCKS!
In severe cases, with chronic neck pain, the sufferer may also experience depression, mood swings (anger and anxiety), irritability, sleep disturbances, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and even drug dependency connected to the incident.
SOURCE: Neck Pain - Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis and Treatments
In the book PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY by Norman Latov, MD, PhD, he shares his own medical afflictions (neuropathy) with others to encourage them. ...
Functioning day to day is not easy. Living with neuropathy teaches you very quickly that you cannot take anything for granted. Just a few years ago, if someone had told me that walking up a flight of stairs could be agonizing and make me feel like I'd just climbed Mount Everest, I wouldn't have believed them. Let me tell you: I believe them now.
From the outside, you could never know anything is wrong. In fact, someone recently said how lucky I was that no one can tell I have this disease. Actually, it's a double-edge sword. I don't want people to think something is wrong with me. On the other hand, I often feel like I'm suffering in silence because no one understands what I'm living with. I try very hard to hide what I'm going through. ...
When you are diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, you constantly are confronted with what life was like “before” and “after.” “Before” meant living without having to think about every little thing you do. It meant walking down stairs without having your heart skip a beat as you fear you may tumble down instead of walk down. “Before” meant taking a step without having to take a step.
“After” means thinking before doing. When you wake up in the morning, you get out of bed, remembering to be careful not to lose your balance.
SOURCE: PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY: When the Numbness, Weakness, and Pain Won't Stop; by Norman Latov, MD, PhD; pages 103-104; ISBN-13:978-1-932603-59-0
That is exactly what I have been diagnosed with and am going through. I have also been diagnosed with stenosis (narrowing of the spinal cord pathway and radiculopathy (tingling, burning, weakness, and pain radiating in the arms and legs). It's a miserable way to exist. It seems like only a dream when I think back to a time in my life when I was pain free and happy. I long for Christ's return and the redemption of my body... “even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23).
Coping with Cervical Radiculitis, Stenosis and
Osteoarthritis
Job 16:1, “Then Job answered and said, I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all. Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest? I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you. But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.”
Until a person is afflicted with endless pain, they naturally can't relate to such suffering and can't possibly understand. They just can't. I know what's it's like to be outside on a beautiful day with the sun shining, and everybody is enjoying life and having a good time, but physical suffering within my body is afflicting me and it overshadows me.
Philippians 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” That is why this website is here, i.e., because God has done a work in my heart to will and to do of His good pleasure. Amen and amen!
I have endured the Devil afflicting me ever since my ministry began to grow in 2004. I started the work in 2002. Only the Lord knows the depth of suffering that I've endured. Job didn't have it so bad. The book of Job reads like a biography of my life. Job 16:20-21, “My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God. O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!” Job 19:19, “All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.” I have a faithful Savior in Heaven and that is my hope. Jesus is precious!
I ask for your earnest prayers for this ministry and me daily. This ministry is much bigger than me, it's about the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE (John 14:6)! HEAR YE HIM! No one is despised in this world, even among professed Christians, like the TRUTH-TELLER IS DESPISED. I am a truth-teller (except when I am filling out retarded Pfizer drug forms). I expect as much from an unsaved heathen doctor and a greedy drug empire. But we are living in truly perilous times, when even professed Christians don't care about each other anymore. Baptist pastors are a shame to their profession! Who cares? I do. Sadly, I oftentimes wonder if anyone else really cares in churches today. They sure don't on Guam. I would find more compassion in a Roman Catholic church on Guam, than at a lousy place like Harvest Baptist Church or some other hangout for religious people. By God's grace, in accordance with His will, I will never shut my mouth about the things in my soul that I am passionate about! If I have to stand alone in my pain of soul and body, then I will, in a world of cowards!
I love you all in the Lord, whoever you may be. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).
