Sudburian Tammy MacDonald is well aware there are people in worse situations than she is, but she still has a message she wants to share: No one should have to live in pain.
MacDonald is two weeks overdue for the numerous Botox injections that help alleviate the symptoms associated with her auto-immune disease, fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid arthritis and Epstein-Barr.
She said she’s been ill for about 20 years, and needed a walker before she started the Botox treatments. She gets between 30 to 60 injections each visit, depending on how bad her pain is at the time. The injections work by blocking signals from the nerves to the muscles so they no longer spasm and pain is controlled. MacDonald said this helps her relax, so the muscles are no longer under stress, and allowd her to manage life a bit better.
MacDonald suffers severe aches and pains, but especially migraine headaches.
“I have all 18 trigger points, so the pain is everywhere,” she said.
The clinic she attends in Markham, Canadian Integrative Medicine, was closed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she can’t even get ahold of them on the phone, and they aren’t taking any messages right now.
“I really thought the province would look at essential services in the medical field a bit better than they have,” MacDonald said.
She said she believes the province dropped the ball when it determined what businesses are essential.
“I feel abandoned,” she said. “I know it’s not the clinic’s fault, and they are just following the rules of the pandemic. I read stories about cancer patients who can’t get surgeries, and I know I’m not as bad off as many other people, but I think they need to reassess essential services in the medical field.”
For now, MacDonald said her physician has prescribed her pain medication, but she’s reluctant to take opioids.
“It’s for the short term, and I get that, but I can’t just stay in bed,” she said.
She reached out to Sudbury.com because she believes there may be others going through the same thing, and she believes the province needs to reassess which businesses are essential in the medical field.
“The last few weeks have become a lot more difficult,” she said. “You shouldn’t just be able to stop those treatments.”
