Pubdate: Fri, 01 Jul 2005
Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2005 Summit Daily News
Contact:  http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587
Author: Kimberly Nicoletti
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)

DOCTOR SHOPPING IN SUMMIT: A PERSONAL STORY

SUMMIT COUNTY - Bob didn't have the usual response to pain killers.

He'd stay up for three days straight on Percocet and Vicadin, chatting with 
women overseas through the internet.

He first discovered what he describes as the euphoric effects of pain 
killers playing college football. After college, he started running and 
went through six surgeries for pinched nerves in his feet. One doctor would 
give him two or three refills on Percocet, and when he ran out, he would 
visit other doctors, using different addresses.

In 1986, he began a practice called doctor shopping even more, seeing 
doctors throughout Summit County, Leadville and Vail. Bone spurs in his 
right elbow showed up in X-rays, so doctors prescribed drugs for him 
without knowing he had been to another doctor the prior week.

"I got addicted to pain pills, and coming off of them was terrible. I drank 
alcohol for the withdrawal," he said.

In 1989, he stopped drinking and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). 
He didn't tell anyone he still abused prescription drugs.

Back pain allowed him to continue to access prescription drugs. After 
X-raying his hip in 1990, a Leadville doctor suggested hip surgery. But Bob 
put off the surgery and played out the pain to support his habit. He moved 
to Phoenix, Ariz., to start a magazine, and the amount of doctors in the 
city turned out to be a fringe benefit.

"When I opened up the phone book, I was like a kid in a candy store," he said.

And that's when his problem escalated.

He had a couple of root canals, and rather than let them heal, he pulled 
out the packing and stuck paper clips in the wounds almost on a daily basis 
from June through September of 1993. He used up his savings going to the 
dentist on an emergency basis to get more prescription drugs. On Sept. 30, 
1993, he accidentally overdosed. His family found him with his lungs full 
of vomit and took him to the hospital. He was in a coma for five days.

And still, he didn't stop.

He found a doctor in Scottsdale, Ariz., known as the "Candy Man." If a 
patient had enough cash - $250 for the initial visit and $150 for follow 
ups - he could get OxyContin. A pharmacist Bob met in AA filled his 
prescriptions without blowing the whistle.

When he moved back to Breckenridge a few years ago, the 53-year-old began 
doctor shopping in Summit and Eagle counties again. But this time, 
pharmacists turned him in after filling five prescriptions for Percocet in 
one month. Around that time, Bob started getting sick and tired of being 
sick and tired.

A year ago, he went to Colorado West Mental Health for help, and that same 
day Summit County Drug Task Force approached him as he was waiting to see a 
doctor. The officer said he had a year-long paper trail on his methods of 
obtaining prescription drugs. Bob got four felonies and four misdemeanors, 
which are still pending.

He signed a contract that he would use only one doctor for all treatment, 
and he went to a detox center. Now he attends outpatient treatment twice a 
week, AA meetings six times a week and Colorado West's eight-month COPES 
program once a week. Since March 24, he has relapsed once.

"I'm trying to do the right thing these days," he said. "I'm trying to put 
some (clean) time together for the first time in 18 years. I don't want to 
live the way I was living."

Bob requested we not to use his last name in this story.