A Visionary Media Inc. Film By Producers Tina Petrova & Director Eugene Weis eloquently weaves together heart - breaking stories of an all but invisible demographic: those who struggle to stay alive daily, amidst life long chronic pain & chronic illness.

To summarize the documentary Pain Warriors: The Other Side of the Opiod Crisis.

Largely invisible, sunned and disbelieved, Pain Warriors enters into the desperate lives of pain patents fighting for their very survival; families [such as mine] torn apart by suicide and the troubled worlds of compassionate doctors who stand up for them, even at the cost of incarceration.

The late Karen Paddock, that hosts this site, is one of the five stories. This is NOT a warm & fuzzy movie to watch. See the Testimonials below as to why.

Watch Pain Warriors at one of the following locations. Note that Pain Warriors is NOT a warm and fuzzy movie to watch!:

TubiTV for free via ads, oddly a photo of Karen is the very first thing you see when you click on the link.

iTunes The trailer here starts with Karen writing the book, Karen's Journal, that she did not know she was writing.

Google Play Store

Watch Pain Warriors from anywhere in the world, via Vimeo On Demand
Short trailer on YouTube
Note that Pain Warriors can also be 'rented' from YouTube. They make it impossible to supply a direct link to it. They also give a warning about “Inappropriate Content” without explanation. It is because of the suicides discussed.

Note that the cost may vary with your location and which of the above sources you choose. The distributor Gravitas Ventures sets the price, we have no control over it.

After watching please write a review for us on Internet Movie Database (IMDb), to lift our ratings, or ask friends who have viewed the film to do so. That link also shows the current reviews.

The reviews left on Internet Movie Database (IMDb) are the ones that count toward our goal of getting Pain Warriors on to Netflix to reach a far wider audience.

We have signed Pain Warriors to Gravitas Ventures distribution to help us to get it to wide audience, and positive reviews will help us get Pain Warriors on Netflix and/or PBS etc.

A Pain Warrior is someone : child, mother , father, brother sister, friend- who plods on day in and day out, in chronic illness or chronic pain, with no hope of lasting relief or a cure in sight. Living in intractable pain is not for sissies. Intractable pain is usually life long.

Those of us who wake up each day and go to sleep in pain, are like an elite group of Navy Seals; we battle the demon of pain with all our strength , gather our courage to not give up, minute to minute -even though many of us just want to lay down and surrender the battle.

Other than a few loved ones beside us, no one really knows what we go through and no one really cares… least of all society at large. We are invisible …we are shunned… we are misunderstood.

Making this film is the FIRST STEP in ADVOCATING FOR OUR DEMOGRAPHIC in a highly VISIBLE and AUDIBLE way.

Our new feature film that will expose the underbelly of the BEAST OF PAIN .

We are PAIN WARRIORS.

These testimonials are from the few people that took me up on the offer to watch the new documentary Pain Warriors, of which Karen's story is a part, before its public release. I'm hoping Pain Warriors will raise awareness of the issues of Chronic Pain, CSF Leaks and is worthy of all whom suffer…

I am off from the first weekend of my show season and made the time to watch this. Wow, just wow! I have spent my whole life talking to people who have either physical or emotional pain. I know that if you just scratch the surface of someone who has a seemingly normal life, you will find a different story just waiting to be told. I didn't know it was soooo pervasive!

The idea that it is 100M Americans living with chronic pain is mind-boggling. The fact that each one of those touches at least a few other lives implies that the whole nation is dramatically impacted by chronic pain. I'm assuming that number represents physical pain and doesn't even touch the ones with issues like anxiety and depression…. which in my observation is pretty consuming these days as well….

I must admit, I cried numerous times during this video. The most during your segments, because I feel like I know a small part of you and what you have gone through….

Of course, all the stories are sad and tragic and American life and the medical community has let so many down…. is there a point of return?

Thank you for sharing this early with me. I hope of people see it after the festival seasons and awareness is raised. And maybe, just maybe, some doctors will examine their practices. And maybe, just maybe, families will stop avoiding “the one” who always looks well, but is always having a health struggle and labeling it all in their minds….

Bob,

I just watched the documentary. It’s powerful, and brought me to tears several times, not only you telling of Karen’s suicide but the boy and his sister, Hunter and Willow. It’s humbling, what people get through, or don’t get through.

As an asthmatic, I have had a lifetime of a repetitive – but far from continuous, and not always particularly painful – condition. I do know how even the sheer persistence of the condition can wear you down; not just the condition but the persistence of the condition, making normal life difficult or impossible.

People who haven’t experienced it, themselves or second-hand, really don’t know how to understand it. For people who take normal health for granted, it may require a great effort of the imagination. This film may help some of them make that effort. Let’s hope so.

Thanks for letting me see it.

Dear Bob,

I just watched the entire film and found it very moving, very effective, and well-done as far as my knowledge of films go. It was so engrossing, at times brought tears and I think really educated the average person like me who, had I not known your story earlier, would not have been anywhere near understanding this problem. I do have a relative who has spoken of chronic pain and probably didn’t give her enough full awareness as I would know from this film). Thank you so much for sharing it with me. I really think this should be part of a world premier festival. There wasn’t time to mention that your having shared your knowledge with medical people to help inform medical folks more and hope to keep informed of how that goes at…

People in the poster

This is the green poster at the top of the page.

Top left: Hunter and Dr. Jacobs
Top right: Dr Mark Ibsen
Middle left: The late Sherri L Little
Very middle: Master Lee Chi Wai

Middle Right: Lisa Blackstock
Bottom Left: Yanekah
Bottom right: Bob Paddock

This is the producer Tina Petrova explaining how this documentary got its start.

James Strecker Reviews the Arts interview with Tina Petrova.

Yes, people it is a real movie, and real movies have tee shirts:

Buy Female Tee Shirt here, Buy Male Tee Shirt here.

Buy a Tee Shirt to show your support of those with Chronic Pain. The funds are going toward paying of the debts from the production of the documentary.

Long after filming was completed Dr Mark Ibsen wrote the following. I have slightly edited it to keep it Family Friendly, at least as far as the discussions of violent suicides can go.

“I used to think this was evidence of a personality disorder, and that the way to handle patients who were 'suicidal' was to avoid giving them the medications they were 'seeking' so they could not kill themselves.

Then Bob Mason shot himself. John Burke drank himself to death. So did Jennifer Beausoleil.

Lynette Chadwick died. I had heard it was an opiate OD, just recently her son came to tell me it was an Amitriptyline overdose.

Then jennifer Adams shot herself, right after Dr Tennant was taken out. And then Chris Storseth blew his brains out after I retired from prescribing, (and referred him to Multiple other doctors who refused to treat his pain), blaming me.

Lynnette, Chris and Jennifer B were three of the nine patients the Board of Medicine accused me of overprescribing to.

All 6 died from UNDER prescribing.

Could there be any MORE evidence of the folly of these crazy policies?

Did they die in vain? Alone, in agony, isolated and miserable.

Hippocrates says this is nuts- to start people on procedures, then palliative care for years, then abandon them and millions of other refugees, for what? (There is ZERO evidence that these policies have prevented any harm, and I just gave you the evidence of the harm they caused) Talk about your “Quid Pro Quos”.

What a weird world we find ourselves in. Especially those of us healers who have helped hundreds of thousands of patients live better more productive lives.

Do No Harm”