Season 7 Episode 1
Linda
Age: 39
Location: Los Angeles, California
Addiction: Fentanyl
What’s Memorable: Linda’s behavior is completely over the top and performative, she was obviously dealing with some serious mental issues at the time this was filmed that I sincerely hope were addressed once the addiction was treated. The things that her little brother Sam has to do to take care of her at her parent’s request are awful, that poor guy. The intervention is a doozy. There’s a lot to learn about Chinese family dynamics in this episode that I found really interesting.
Official synopsis: After graduating college, Linda found success working as an extra in Hollywood, achieving the glamorous life she always wanted. But her dreams died when she came down with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by joint dislocations. Linda started taking fentanyl, a painkiller 100 times stronger than morphine. As her painkiller use escalated, she claimed that different sources were causing her pain, including electricity, energy, colors, and even specific people. Despite Linda’s wild claims, her mother clings to the belief that Linda’s pain is real and she must do everything to help her, including depleting the family’s savings and sending her son to be Linda’s caretaker.
Original Air Date: November 2009
Interventionist: Ken
EDS or no, it is a condition that does NOT require hospice level narcotics. Unfortunately it seems like there is comorbid mental health/brain changes in Linda with the years of drug seeking and drug abuse. And i just want to see the movies she was in! Did Linda get her life back and get back to work? Did Sam? I have CRPS a similar incurable overactive pain response and the treatment is MANAGEMENT> yes activity. More dancing less drugs lol
I’m not sure if she has the disease or not but she is totally mentally ill and she’s manipulating her mother. Her poor brother should not have to be her personal servant. The mother was infuriating I know she wants to help but she’s ruining her daughters life with the enabling. I hope the family got the help they needed and Linda is better but I doubt it. She was living in her own world
That should say “illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF).” And I should elaborate that “prescription ODs are rare” is to say that people legitimately prescribed them and who do not abuse them or mix with other substances *is when OD is rare.* People are still at risk by taking prescription opioids they were not legitimately prescribed (ie, diverted meds) or abusing them/using other substances.
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Also worth noting: Linda was sent to a pain clinic that was big on letting people keep being prescribed opioids if they had legitimate need (same place Brooke went to). It also sadly got raided by the DEA, and Dr. Jerry Rand lost his license. Idk if he ever got it back, but this place reportedly deviated from the standard of care. So if Linda wants to be ticked with A&E, be ticked with them selecting a place that helped contribute to the opioid crisis. And I’m not NotKatie Kat lol. My mobile doesn’t want to work right on here.
Please explain, “I can’t make left turns”
Making left turns (into traffic) is considered bad luck to some, I am assuming this is what that’s based off of.
Linda Li is posting like crazy, glad you are still around Linda. I have no knowledge of her disorder, but I do have my own knowledge of nerve damage throughout my body.
I will never judge someone that has a different type of pain than I do.
It is/was VERY difficult to obtain pain medication. Please DO NOT fault any doctor. My main reason for filming was to help others in my situation get access to pain meds by making the public aware of the needs. Shameful that AETV did the opposite of what I was trying to achieve. Making it look like I was faking a painful disorder or even suggesting that it was not as painful as cancer. Shame on the producers. People are killing themselves bc of lack of availability of pain meds. I’m around people suffering from pain without access to opiates. It’s painful to witness. AETV has blood on their hands. They knew exactly why I put my life on the line filming. What a disservice to the pain community.
IF it was so difficult to obtain pain medicine, why were there bags and bags of Actiq at your home? l know how difficult it is to obtain prescription drugs here in Canada, that’s why , when I was an addict, I “doctor shopped” and if you saw over 50 doctors in a year, you were too.
You’re right about the current state of pain management in the US. Many people who legitimately need opioid therapy have lost their treatment (or are unable to initiate therapy) due to the overdose crisis and pill mills from a decade+ ago. It has become a new crisis that is seldom acknowledged by medical agencies or most medical professionals. The crisis has gotten so much worse since prescriptions have come down greatly as many more people are dying now from illicitly manufactured (IMF) that comes from drug cartels. Purely prescription ODs is rare, and even when overprescribing was a real issue, the deaths back then were nothing like now.
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With that said, some people prescribed opioids do abuse them. Also some people claim to have EDS when they do not. You believing electromagnetic fields, or flowers in a garden ,or left-hand turns caused you adverse health events is not based in reality. It is completely understandable you were diagnosed with a somatic delusional disorder when you went to treatment. No one thinks they know someone’s full life just because they were on a 43-minute edited docu-series. However, what we saw were things you really did or admitted to. The fact that you can’t admit reality 16 years later is really a pity. I hope you are doing well otherwise and that your family is too.
I was off opiates completely from 2010 to 2016. AS a result of living in an EMF free environment. So there was no need for opiates. In 2016 there was a Major fire in my condo complex and they sprayed a Toxic acidic chemical throughout the building which resulted in my pain skyrocketing again at which time I went on Norco. I stayed on that from 2017 to 2018. I went off it in 2018. In 2020 with the skyrocketing usage of Cell phones and most likely the advent of 5G , I had to go back to 2 norcos a day. But like I said I did not consider myself Sober during any of the time since the intervention. It would be disrespectful to people truly struggling with sobriety. And YES you have to go through extensive psychological testing with a pain Psychologist every year and prove you have a painful medical condition with supporting medical records to maintain status at a pain clinic. As the DEA needs verification for everything. Pain doctors are having their licenses revoked regularly. Prescribing opiates for Somatic or psychological pain simply does not Exist in this day and age. A Doctor would lose their license for that behavior. BTW I was having issues with EMF long before I ever touched an opiate. I Had EDS 5 years b4 I had to go on opiates. Don’t know if I mentioned it but I am allergic to ALL opiates with the exception of Opana, norco and Fentanyl.
I am still on Pain meds. Intervention sent me to a pain rehab and they just switched me to opana and norco. Notice they said at the end of the show. I had not had Fentanyl since the intervention. Reason being They know the doctors kept me on pain meds the whole time and even afterwards. They would not do that unless they knew my pain was real. I never released my medical records to the show. They presented me with forms but I refused to sign them once They did what they did. So they would not have access to that information. But I have since met at least 3 EDS friends who suffer from the EXACT same Delusion. There are hundreds more online. When people bring up the topic of EMF on the support group sites the threads are massive and go on for days. You gotta question how it is even possible for people who have never met each other to share the same delusion. Just sayin. I am referring to the delusion about EMF hurting our joints.
Have you heard of or seen Yvie Oddly? She won season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race- she uses her special EDS superpowers in her lip sync dance routines and founded a support community. She has the hyper flexibility variety. https://www.out.com/health/2019/4/11/drag-races-yvie-oddly-opens-about-living-ehlers-danos-disease
Movement helps in EDS cases. I am like a bike or marionette. If I am not moving and working against gravity that is when dislocations happen. EDSers often dislocate in their sleep, sitting laying down. I explained on camera that the anti gravity effect of running relocates my hips so I would have to get up to run every few minutes during the Intervention to get my hips back in. They edited it out if I am having to explain myself here. It’s kind of funny the pain doctor they sent me to kept saying that if I did not go up and down the stairs I’d end up bedridden when those are the things that injure me the most. I also had to keep repeating that I could NEVER end up bedridden because I can NEVER stay in a BED!!! Staying Seated and laying down are activities that hurt the most. ON Facebook they even have an EDS Athletes board. EDS is an odd disability. I tried to demonstrate that by dancing for the cameras bc that is another technique I use to relocate my hips. Oh there is even a Sitting Disability group on FB as well. I related to Gal Gadot when she was promoting Wonder Woman after hurting her back. She had to conduct all her interviews standing up.
My pain was severely undertreated. the suckers only lasted an hour a day. My pain was at a 40 24 hours a day. Leaving me in intense pain 18 hours a day. I was jealous of people on death row. I would gladly live out my life in a concentration camp or jail cell rather than be in that kind of pain again. It is only better now bc of my avoidance of wireless devices. I am allergic to all opiates except opana and fentanyl. Completely grateful I was able to take fentanyl. I never got a high off fentanyl as the medication went directly to my pain receptors. If you haven’t noticed the difference btw the new fentanyl episodes and mine. I’m not passed out and incoherent. So they tried to play the crazy angle. With my fingers hurting at a 10 and my hips hurting at a 10 there was no high to get as it was never enough pain coverage. It hurts just talking about it again. I would gladly give up 40 years of life to live one day without pain. If I had a kid in my type of pain. I would gladly let them do whatever was necessary to get out of agony. In the EDS community Pregnancy is widely debated. It is a banned topic in most groups as EDS pain is so severe people think it is atrocious to bring an EDS baby into the world. You often see people shaming mothers for choosing to have a kid with EDS.
EMF Confusion. How it affects me. I just thought I’d help you out with some examples. After Intervention I moved into a Board and care with a bunch of old ladies. The caregiver there mentioned to me that whenever I took a shower they could not watch TV because the whole screen would static out completely and then return to normal after I got out of the shower. Also there was an electronic fire alarm in the bathroom and at least once a week if I flipped my wet hair over it would set off the alarm and we’d have to go to the garage to shut it off. No one else was setting it off but me. I also had a male EDS friend named Scott who told me he was afraid to go into a supermarket because whenever he did so just touching a gallon of milk would give him the most painful shock. He would have to put his sleeve over his hand to prevent it from happening. He’s a Black dude by the way. Just to give you a picture. I had this issue at the University Library my dad worked at as a child. I hated going to visit him at work. I would just get shocked left and right as a 6 yr old. So yes my mom being an extreme carrier of EMF would always manage to dislocate me. It was always my collarbone. I attribute that to her being 5″2 and my being 5″9 and her hair being the same level as my collarbones. Whenever they would dislocate it literally felt like being shot by an arrow or gun almost. Let me know if this helps you understand. But if you want to believe it is all delusion no harm as it does not take away how painful EDS is in and of itself. It also does not make me a liar as I sincerely believe in my “delusions” lol