GO FIGURE

[Texas5088]

After begging for my meds for a week and being lied to over and over again about when he would refill it I gave up. I assumed he wasn't going to take care of it.  

So I made an Appt with my PCP to go visit about this mess and get a referral to another pain dr. I had gone thru WD and was managing the best I could. All of a sudden today I get a text saying my scripts are ready to pickup and on top of that they sent it to the wrong pharmacy (actually a different branch).

So now do I continue to find a new dr or go in for my scheduled Appt in a month and see what my current dr has to say.

I did go get the meds so at least that. Buys me time on this decision.

[mellie4]

Sorry about your family.  I know that all too well.  My sister (who is an alcoholic and chronic pot smoker) has everyone convinced I'm an addict and need to be in a detox.  My poor dad.  He's 83 and doesn't know what to think.  He sees how bad my pain gets.  I've tried to explain it to him, but he doesn't quite understand.  My sister has gone as far as to make these accusations to my kids, my ex-husband (who is an addict but now thinks he can throw "pill popper" in my face.)  I invited her to appointments.  She actually picked me up from several of my 9 surgeries.  Somehow in her mind, she is fine drinking a large bottle of wine every night along with a couple of bowls, but I'm not even though I take everything the way I'm supposed to.  It got to the point I got all anxious about it and tapered way down on my meds.  I've never had great pain control and now it's less.  I am glad to be off some of it as I got a bit foggy on the Fentanyl but she has no clue.  I've often wished her to have my pain and my life for one week just to see if her attitude changed.

Now, I just don't discuss it with her.  And I won't discuss it with anyone anymore, just my physicians.  Thank God we have this forum!!!!

[Ghilly]

It's awful the way chronic pain patients get treated, and not just by so-called "Professionals".  My own family has basically disowned me because, to them, I'm nothing more than a drug addict.  I am 54 years old.  I was an only child and both of my parents are deceased, with my Mom passing in 1986 and my Dad in 1995.  Everything was fine until I got hurt, had the surgery, and then developed the arachnoiditis following the myelogram.  As soon as it was known among the family that I was not going to get better and that I would need pain meds for the rest of my life, I might as well have told them that I was a leper.

It hurts like hell to have your own family just write you off, ESPECIALLY when it's not a case of being addicted to street drugs but one of being physically ill and needing medication just to be able to get out of bed in the morning.  After all this time, even if they did figure it out and apologize to me I don't think I could just accept it like a happy idiot and act glad to see them again.  I do know that I would love to see one of them end up in the same or a similar situation just so that I could sit and enjoy the show, and at that point if they came to me to ask me questions I would just kick them back into play and continue to watch.  Mean, I know.  But pain makes you think about things differently, and when people, and specifically, people you LOVE, literally turn their backs on you when you need them most, it really does a job on you.

Ghilly

[mellie4]

Umm, that nurse from your ER ... she's at my ER now!!!  When I wound up in the ER in May, I told the doctor I was a pain patient.  I had what seemed to be a stomach bug (whole other story on that.)  At first the doc was not going to give me IV narcotics, even though I was in bad withdrawal due to not being able to keep my pain meds in.  After contacting my pain clinic, he apologized, gave me the IV and I'm starting to FINALLY feel a bit better with that and the fluids.  The original nurse wasn't too nice, gave me some dirty looks and made a few snide comments.  I told her either change her attitude or find me a new nurse.  She also apologizes.  (And I was nice about it.)  Next nurse was a whole different story.  She actually comes in and says, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Hey, get off the oxycodone.  They're really evil.  No one needs those."

That's the short story.  I did tell my pain doctor about the entire experience, and she put a call into that hospital and told them they need their pain clinic to educate their ER.  But after two experiences at that ER, I wouldn't go there again.  (Closest one to me.)

[Texas5088]

Well up til now I have Had a very good relationship with my PMP.   My cardiologist was the one who actually brought him on the case when I was in the hospital.   That's why this has been so frustrating. I really did like him  l just don't want to caught like this again.

[Ghilly]

OMGoodness, I just looked back and saw that I wrote a book!  I'm so sorry for being so wordy!  

Ghilly

[Ghilly]

If I were you, I would weigh out all of the pros and cons of this doctor before deciding whether or not to make a switch.  Do you like the way he is handling your case otherwise?  Do you have a good relationship with him?  Are the meds he is prescribing for you satisfactory when it comes to pain control?  Aside from this last incident, has your relationship with him as a patient been relatively trouble-free as far as being hung out to dry in terms of having your meds when you needed them?

Sometimes it's not the doctor that is the problem, it is the office staff.  I have had some great doctors, but have ended up leaving because the ninnies in the office have been impossible to deal with!   If you are satisfied with him in general, I would sit with him on your next appointment and talk over with him what actually happened.  Have all of your insurance and pharmacy papers with you so that you can show him that you were not calling early.

People will do anything they have to to cover their own butts, and it could be that even though you explained the situation to someone at his office, if THEY thought they knew better, they might not have given him the correct information, but of course they would never admit to that if confronted with it.  Some people just think they know what's best for everyone, and I have found this is true ESPECIALLY when it comes to pain meds.  We had a nurse at our hospital who, when a doctor would prescribe pain meds for a patient in the ER, would read the prescriptions over and tsk tsk at the patients before giving them their prescriptions and say "well, I see you have managed to convince him to give you pain meds..." as if whatever you were there for could have been dealt with by taking an aspirin.  This happened to my hubby.  My hubby HATES opiates.  On the occasions when he has hurt himself and gone to the ER, or has needed emergency care for a health condition, if they give him a prescription for opiates he takes it but almost never has it filled.  He would rather deal with the pain than feel the way opiates make him feel.  Well, three or four years ago he developed an ear infection from a pool.  His ear was SO swollen it was turned almost entirely inside out, with the opening of the ear being non-existent because of the swelling.  It looked like he had a rose on the side of his head.  The doctor gave him Vicodin ES until the antibiotics started to work, and this woman tsk tsk'd him over it.  He called the hospital the next day and spoke to the director of nursing about her.  He had me take pics of his ear and we emailed them to the person and said that this nurse had made him feel like he was some kind of street junkie because the doctor had given him pain meds.  They assured us that they would look into it.  Well, long story even longer, this is a small town and word started to get around and more and more people who had had run-ins with this person started to contact the hospital about her.  She no longer works here.  I don't know where she does work, but I hope they're not letting her get away with anything where she is now.

My point after all of that was to show that it could have been someone in his office who was telling him that you were calling early for your meds.  Most doctors are too busy to sit and decipher a patient's chart when it comes to refills, and they count on their staff to get everything ready and put it in front of him to simply write the scrips.  

So before you switch doctors, make sure you are really unhappy with this one and it's not his staff that is messing you up.  You might end up getting with someone who doesn't think you need what you are taking and you could end up in a worse situation than you are now.  If this last incident is just the icing on the cake, though, and it IS the doctor himself that is the problem, you may want to consider making a switch.

Ghilly

[mellie4]

Well, other than this incident, how do you like your PM doc and his staff?  I mean, this was a pretty big mistake.  And I can tell you, since I've found myself in withdrawal from different causes, that I probably would have dragged myself to his office in the midst of withdrawals so they could see how bad it was!!!  Trouble is, I don't think any of these doctors have A) ever been in the kind of pain CP patients have, or B) ever found themselves in withdrawal.

How long have you been with this doc?  I've had a couple of things happen with my pain clinic over the years that I was less than pleased with but OVERALL I think they're good.  And after reading what a lot of people deal with, I'll stick with the devil I do know!

Wouldn't hurt to interview a new pain doctor.  See if you like the new better.  You're in a good position so you could really interview them and see if you like their practices and attitudes better than the one you have.  Just a thought.