Doctor closed practice. Need help!!!

[Ghilly]

I had been going to my pain management doctor for 11 years.  At the end of May he closed his pain management practice and started doing only referrals and second opinions because he wanted to totally eliminate the need to see people for more than one visit.  Apparently his own health was beginning to suffer after almost 20 years of seeing his nearly 3000 patients.  Well, he sent me to a couple of different doctors to continue my pain management but none of them will prescribe for me what he was prescribing.  Don't get me wrong, if someone could give me one pill of something a day and it relieved my pain I wouldn't care WHAT it was, but all these doctors want to do is give minimal pain meds and do nerve blocks.  I cannot afford 20% of a nerve block every couple of weeks and the meds they agree to prescribe don't begin to touch the pain.  I have a full time job and, because I manage a hotel, I live there and my apartment is part of my salary package.  I cannot lose or quit my job because I will also lose my house!  Can anyone recommend, by private message, of course because I know we can't give out info like that in the forums, a good pain management doctor in South Texas (Matagorda county, but will travel) who is helpful to them and doesn't just want to stick needles in me?  Thanks so much in advance for your help!

[philnoir]

It's easy and cheap to inject lidocaine, and some doctors make a fortune doing so, whether or not the treatment is effective, and data shows that injections are effective about 50% of the time.

They call this kind of quack a "shot jock". Unfortunately, there are plenty of them out there practicing interventional pain medicine.

However, there's also very good interventional pain docs who use blocks conservatively, because they read the journals to learn what works and what doesn't. They have your health in mind, and not their bank account balance.

If I could, I'd create a list of the good docs. Perhaps someday I'll figure out a way for patients like yourself to report the good, the bad, and the ugly, and we'll have a list that all chronic pain patients can use to find effective and adequate pain control.

Best wishes.

[Ghilly]

I'm so sorry to hear about what happened with your SS Disability.  When I got my SS Disability I didn't even waste time with a regular attorney, I called Binder and Binder and they took care of everything for me.  CALL THEM!   Tell them what happened and tell they you want them to get your SSD for you.  They will NOT take your case unless they know they can win, so if, after meeting with them and talking with them they have you sign the pertinent papers and whatnot, just sit back and relax because you will know that it's just a matter of time and you WILL be awarded SSD.  They have offices all over the country so just do a Google search for Binder and Binder with your city in the search and you'll get the number for the office closest to you.  

My former PM TOLD me that it was going to be difficult to find a doctor who would prescribe what he had had me on, but neither one of us had any idea just HOW difficult!  I went to eight different doctors in a month and every last one of them looked at me like I was some kind of criminal.  My doctor even put me in Methodist Hospital in Houston for a whole week at the end of May so that he could lower my dosage of pain meds without my having to go through withdrawal so that doctors wouldn't look at me like I was some kind of drug seeking junkie.  I never would have believed that it could be done but he did it!  He took me from 20mg of methadone, 360mg of oxycodone and 60mg of Norco A DAY down to 20mg of methadone and 30mg of Norco A DAY in one week's time with absolutely NO ADVERSE EFFECTS with regard to withdrawal.  He then did a nerve block because of a tumor on a nerve root in my sacral area, but that wore off after about 2 weeks.  The PMs that I went to ALL wanted to give me Ultram for pain coupled with nerve blocks every couple of weeks.  Ultram!  There was NO WAY that was going to control my pain, the whole idea was for the new doc to tell me that the 20mg of methadone wasn't going to be nearly enough and increase me to a reasonable dose to control my pain.  But NONE of the pain docs in this stupid state save for my old doc that closed his practice seemed to care about the amount of pain anyone was in, all they cared about was NOT prescribing opiates and insisting on doing nerve blocks.  Well, I'm sorry, I just don't have the money to continually pay 20% of nerve blocks every couple of weeks.  Then it dawned on me and DH that the reason for the nerve blocks was probably because he wouldn't get pain for writing prescriptions, other than whatever it cost for the office visit, but with epidurals he'd be making a bundle every time he broke out his needles.  I didn't intend to become a pincushion just so that he would take me on as a patient.  Then he (the last one I saw before I about gave up) told me that he had detected oxycodone in my urine and if he would give me a pass that month, but if it happened again the following month I would be dropped.  Well, it had been at LEAST six weeks since I had had an oxycodone, and none had showed up in my bloodwork on the day I was discharged from the hospital, so I don't know WHERE he was coming up with this, but I knew that this was going to be used against me as well to discharge me at some point when I would tell him that two methadone a day and NOTHING ELSE were NOT enough to control my pain.  

Then yesterday, DH decided he was GOING to find me a doctor who was going to help me and he was going to find him by the end of the day.  Well, when my hubby sets his mind to something I have to say that it DOES happen, and not only did he find me a doctor, he got me an appointment for 3:45 yesterday afternoon and the doctor was a DOLL!   The nurse told us that he usually refers PM patients out, but in rare cases he will take the case on himself.  He asked me if I wanted to go back to the medication regimen that I was on with my former PM doc and I told him that I would like to try making it with less than that, but that I needed more than I was on at the moment.  He doubled my methadone and added six 10mg Norco per day for breakthrough, and said that he needed to see me back in a month, but then told me "don't be a hero.  If you are hurting, DON'T WAIT until next month, come back in so that I can give you more meds and get your pain back under control."  My husband asked him if he was going to refer us to another doctor for PM or if he would let us know if he was going to take me on as a PM patient and he told us "I already HAVE!"  I almost burst into tears, I was so relieved to hear him say that!  He shook my husband's hand and went to shake mine and I excused myself and said "I'm sorry, a handshake isn't going to be enough, please, I HAVE to do this" and I hugged him.  He actually hugged me back and welcomed me to his PM clinic.  Things NEVER work this way for me, they do for other people, but not for me.  I was SO relieved and happy when I left his office yesterday, NOTHING could have ruined my good mood!  I am SO looking forward to getting back on an even keel and getting my pain back under control!

[corey4433]

I'm glad you found a new p.m. I had the same thing happen to me last year ended up with a awful p.m. That only wanted to do steroid injection that cost me alot of money and no pain relief.my family doctor ended up taking over my care thank god she is wonderful,I always prayed and put it in gods hands.It is awful to have chronic pain and have to work I was just denied for social security at the hearing level because I had to return to work because we was about to lose our home,my employer of 21 years even wrote to social security telling them that they make very special accommodation for me and had to physical conpacty test showing many limitations and still lost my attorney said he thought I would win and the judge was heartless and a idot so I know how important pain meds are when your forced to work in pain.

[Ghilly]

I just wanted to post back and say that thanks to my hubby and his "never say die" attitude when it comes to me and my medical treatment, after four hours on the phone today we have found me a new pain management doc and the best part is that he is right here in our town!  We were only going to see him because I needed a local referral for the pain management doctor who works out of our local hospital, but after speaking at length with us, he told us that he is also a doctor at a hospice and he deals with cancer pain patients about 50% of his time.  He treats a VERY select few pain management patients in his own practice, the rest he refers out.  After seeing the results of my latest round of tests from Methodist Hospital in Houston done just one month ago, and after finding out who my previous pain doc was, he told me that he would be pleased to take me on in his own practice and that he thought it would be completely reasonable for me to resume the meds that my previous doc had me on.  Other doctors basically screamed in terror and ran when they found out what they would need to prescribe for me and told me that they just would NOT do that, they all wanted to give me a bare minimum of pain meds and just do a bunch of nerve blocks all the time.  I feel like I was truly blessed today and will sleep tonight like I haven't slept since I found out my old doc was closing his practice.  Thanks all for letting me unload my mental worries on this forum earlier.  I learned today that persistence, total honesty and a bit of prayer will help solve even the most seemingly impossible problem.  :)

Ghilly