Dear Mrs. Clinton, My name is Jill Eckman and I'm 30 years old, have 2 beautiful daughters and a wonderful husband. I first want to tell you that I really admire you for speaking up on women's health issues and you are truly a role model for our children.
The reason for my letter is to ask for your help in getting the word out about pelvic adhesions and women that suffer chronic, daily, intractable pain from them. I want to help to get funding for more research on this problem to find a solution for us. There are some doctors out there that are trying so hard to help, but, they need funding, such as Dr. David Wiseman, in Dallas, Texas. I really am impressed with his work so far, but he needs funding.
I have been "trying" to deal with the pain from adhesions for over 7 years now. It is so hard to be a good mother and wife, when you are bedridden by pain. My children don't understand why mommy can't go out and play with them like she used to, and my husband now has to do most of the housekeeping because I can't anymore. I talk to allot of women that have massive adhesions like I do and they feel the same as I do.
Drs. are still being taught that the first thing to look for when a woman comes to them, complaining about pelvic pain, is to look for depression or to blame it on being sexually abused as a child. Then they tell us that the only way to get rid of the pain is a hysterectomy, which causes more adhesions, and is the reason that I'm in so much pain today. I was given a Hysterectomy when I was 23 years old and it only made the pain worse.
When we ask for pain medication, we are told that we are "drug addicts" or "drug seekers" when all we are asking for is relief from the horrible pain we are in. We are mothers, daughters, sisters and wives and all we want is to have our lives back and to be painfree. We totally agree with the "war on drugs", but, that war is being used on some of the wrong people, such as us. So many doctors are afraid of losing there medical licenses for giving us the proper pain relief. It is so cruel to let so many people suffer like we do. The medical technology is there, it just needs to be used.
We used to be productive people and we are not able to even do everyday things like clean our house or attend
school functions or church because we are in so much pain.
I think that if this subject would be brought out in the public eye, maybe there would be more done for us.
If you could speak out, it would help so much. I am just one person, but, I want to help so much. Not just for
myself but, for the others out there, too.
Allot of us are made to feel that we are weak and guilty for needing pain medicine, but we should not have to feel this way. It causes so much depression. If there were more Drs. that would give effective pain relief, I believe that there would be less depression and there would be less people killing themselves or using doctors like Dr. Kovorkian. We feel so hopeless that sometimes, killing ourselves seems like the only way to end the suffering. I would like to invite you to visit "our" forum on America OnLine, called The Pain Relief Center, Keyword- relief. You will find that there are so many suffering and you will see that we try to offer support.
Thank you so much for your time.