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| | From:  LunarKalia (Original Message) | Sent: 11/3/2008 5:51 AM |
so i did it...i went to the ER. i told my long sad tale. nobody looked at me like a druggie, nobody raised an eyebrow and whispered under their breath so I couldn't hear them. a great woman doctor came in, quickly listened, quickly offered "yes, yes, and now you are addicted to the medication" i OFCOURSE started to take them thar words as FIGHTIN' WORDS!!!, saying "well, i prefer to call it "physical dependence" and she warmed up, was very nice and said yes, that is what it is, really, because it has take 8 years for you to move up in dosage, which is actually pretty amazing, and only now is there need for a change to another way of dealing with chronic pain."
she gave me some hydrocodone and a script for fifteen pills, which will have to last me til the 10th when the last from internist from he-- can be picked up. guess i'll find out then if she had the guts to cancel the prescription! i realize now that while the kind doctor i had in the ER tonight totally gets it, that "addiction", having a pain med not work anymore, is just what happens....it doesn['t mean I AM AN ADDICT...and THAT is what the intern is thinking.
whatever. i'm just tired, i need to sleep n owl at least i have something to help me past the open jaws of withdrawal!!!!!! AND I CAN START IMMEDIATELY, TOMORROW, LOOKING FOR A NEW INTERNIST AND A PAIN DOCTOR! wish me luck?~~~ |
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| | | From: CyndyK2 | Sent: 11/3/2008 8:35 AM |
That's wonderful, Kalia. : ) But for the life of me, I don't understand why you want to look for another internist. As a general rule, they're NOT pain management doctors and don't usually handle chronic pain patients. If at all possible, what you need is a PHYSIATRIST (that's NOT a "psychiatrist", it's a PAIN DOCTOR. If there's no such animal around Rochester, look for an anesthesiologist with a pain management practice. Did you by any chance ask the ER doctor for any recommendations? That would seem to be a good place to start. At least she seemed to be understanding and sympathetic! I'm really happy for you that you won't have to go into withdrawal today, but please start looking for a new doctor TODAY; you don't have as much time as you think. And DO get your records from your internist as soon as you can. Good luck!
Cyndy
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cyndy, my plan IS to find BOTH a new internist, which i need for OTHER medical problems and prescriptions, AND a pain management doctor. i just need to get the internist in place first because of these other health problems and meds that i rely on. '' actually it was an anesthesiologist who told me to take what i was taking! he gave me two trigger point injections and THE NAME of the drug, Xodol, and my internist at that point in time (four years ago )agreed to write the scripts. that's the story on THAT. i have had two very miserable experiences at "pain clinics"....oh god, at the first one, they tried me on neurontin; got to the therpeutic dose and had an emotional meltdown. then they tried me on topamax;; i was SUICIDAL....took MYSELF off that after a week and also didn't go back to the pain clinic. the LAST thing they wanted to do was give me pain medication.
the second experience was just this past winter....went to a pain doc's office, believing i was to see the doctor, then finding out i was seeing his P.A., a loud mouthed obnoxious s.o.b. who came into the room with both guns blazing. see, i don't look at scales when i am weighed....i just keep my eyes closed. sometimes it's just better that way. my weight is my last concern actually....blood pressure is always 112/60, no worries there...so.....while my eyes were closed, the secretary/nurse who weighed me and took my height said out loud "oh my....292 lbs. and you are 5.4 hmmmmmm" well, i started to cry. i was scared of being there anyway, afraid they were going to just come after me with NEEDLES!!! (i have a big needle phobia and have suffered through enough "tests"...)and i heard THAT and i lost it. the sad part is I BELIEVED THAT MUST BE MY WEIGHT.....now there's another side to this: i was, at the time, being treated with Reglan, for gastroparesis...i had spent the whole winter sick sick SICK, with a GI doctor trying every test in the book; finally, the gastric emptying test showed that my stomach was NOT emptying properly....this was due to the bizarre bile duct infection they discovered.
so.....reglan is NOT supposed to be administerd to patients who are being treated for depression, which I AM! but no, the specialist doesn't care: they only want to successfully find THE PROBLEM and treat it.
anyway, to say the least, i was emotinally labile....and this encounter with the pain P.A. went from bad to worse immediately....i wont' go into details, but will just say i sat there and cried.....and cried...and cried.....it was awful....he ofcourse just kept bellowing; i would try to explain something to him and he would just stare at me and say "yeah? so? i have no idea what you're talking about". it was AWFUL....he was unprofessional, mean and rude. i reported him and his lack of compassion to the nystate board of whatever of P.A.s and HE got a copy of the letter.
SO...THAT is my pain management experience to date. pretty miserable, eh? lol yeah.
so now i have to start over....i am just so afraid of being put under that magnifying glass again.....my every move scrutinized like i am a criminal, or crazy!
anyway. sorry, i am blathering again. two cups of coffee will do that.
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Glad you got some pain meds from the ER...even a little bit is better than nothing, right? I agree with Cyndy...the best doctor for pain management is an anestheologist; at least that's what I think. A physiatrist is also good...and looks at the entire body to see if he can help with your pain. I had been there, done that before...so I went to an anestheologist (pain management)....also my neurosurgeon recommended him to me. Most internists don't want to get involved with chronic pain patients at all...and don't want to write prescriptions for pain medication forever. Your (old) internist may not give you your medical records UNTIL you have another doctor though. Some of them will only send the records to that doctor...but not give them to the patient themself. You might be able to get around that though....but be prepared for it. I hope you can find a decent pain management doctor, and get in to see him/her quickly. Don't waste too much time....start today or yesterday...lol. If there aren't that many around, they may refuse to take on new patients, or there may be a very long wait to see them. Maybe even make appointments with a couple, if you find them, and see which one you like better. Good luck and happy hunting!!! Dee |
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| | | From: CyndyK2 | Sent: 11/3/2008 2:43 PM |
A friend of mine who has a morphine pump has been treated with a drug called Prialt that she is apparently allergic to. Her idiot doctor never put two and two together; every time her pump was filled, she'd get more and more bloated to the point she looked pregnant. It wasn't until she had a caretaker who looked up side effects of this drug and found some of the symptoms she had that they realized what's been going on all this time and managed to taper the drug out of the pump. She's lost 120 pounds just from that! So you see, doctors aren't all-knowing beings. We have to be vigilant about our own care, and how our bodies react. Nobody knows us better than we do ourselves. Being in chronic pain, especially untreated pain, it's easy to be depressed and beaten down; most of us know that too well. And then some ass of a doctor comes breezing in and booms, "You're depressed!" Duh. Makes you want to strangle them. Know what makes me see red? When I'm trying to explain something to a doctor that won't listen, and he keeps saying "Calm down!" I was perfectly calm until that point, but being told to calm down over and over when I WAS calm is guaranteed to make me upset! LOL Paradoxical, I know, but there it is. I wish you luck in your search for new doctors; I hope they'll be more sympathetic than the last one. Just remember, YOU pay THEM; they don't pay you. They're not God, no matter what they may think. : )
Cyndy
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