Re: Hard to understand

[Guest guest]

I can imagine how you must feel! How awful so many have to suffer because the

Dea has the physicians so scared they will lose their license.

Cheryl

> wrote:

> I have a pain Specialist that TOTALY AGREES THAT I SHOULD BE PRESCRIBED OPIATE

MEDICATION.

[Guest guest]

Is your pain specialist a doctor? If so, why wouldn't they prescribe pain

medicine?

I think that is terrible that doctors are so afraid of providing comfort for

those of us in chronic pain. Maybe doctors should have a course in medical

school on chronic pain to include that we are not drug addicts!

Gentle hugs, Tami

wrote:

> I have suffered CHRONIC Pain for 21 years.For the last 10 months I have been

trying to find a doctor to manage my pain so far I have been to 5 different

doctors

[Guest guest]

Hi

Have you asked your GP to refer you to someone who specializes in pain

treatment? If not, please do so. If he/she won't, then please get a

new GP.

Finding doctors to treat pain properly is hard, no matter where we live.

GPs often don't have the necessary training to deal with chronic pain

and specialists are nervous about " handing out " too many narcotic

medications. In the meantime, we are the ones who suffer.

Many pain patients, who don't get proper care, end up " treating "

themselves with alcohol. That's a dangerous way to go. Too bad that

doctors wouldn't think about that outcome, before they say " no " to

taking on the treatment of a person with debilitating pain.

I hope you find the help you are looking for soon. I've been where you

are at now and I know how frustrating and painful it is to live with.

Lyndi

another one of the moderators

on wrote:

> I have suffered CHRONIC Pain for 21 years.For the last 10 months I have been

trying to find a doctor to manage my pain

[Guest guest]

My old primary care doctor didn't prescribe anything stronger than vicodin and

said he would send me to the local methadone clinic for pain medicine if I

needed stronger. That's when I started looking into pain management and found

a doctor that is 28 miles away but I only have to go see every other month for

prescriptions etc. She does seem concerned about my pain though.

I needed to go to a pcp closer to my home but they don't take on patients with

chronic pain. Only if I was set up with a pain doctor first. I'm not at all

happy with the staff there but with the price of gas it beats driving 40 mi

round trip just to see my primary care physician.

What bothers me is that I'm afraid I'm not getting the quality of care that I

need with my multiple chronic illnesses. I don't know which doctor to ask to

investigate additional pain, or to check on the severity of my degenerative

conditions.

In a perfect world we wouldn't have to seek a specialist to treat pain.

Jennette

[Guest guest]

Almost EVERY doctor around here has a rule that they don't accept " chronic

pain patients " .so when I was looking for a new PCP, I didn't TELL them about

the pain issues. I told them the truth, that I needed a general

medical/primary care doctor. Once I got to meet with the doctor, I told him

about EVERYTHING and then said, " if you're comfortable prescribing main

meds, great.otherwise, can you refer me to a pain management doctor and

cover me until I can get in? " I was lucky and my doctor has no problems

prescribing my pain meds..and we have an agreement, if he ever gets to the

point where he is uncomfortable, he'll refer me to a pain management doc.

Right now, he does research and calls other doctors for ideas to help me,

which is how he found the doctor who is doing this SCS trial.this doctor is

a Pain Management doctor who only does surgical interventions, SCS, etc. He

doesn't prescribe meds.

When the insurance refused to fill my Oxycodone in FEB of this year (they

filled it in Jan with NO notice that it would be the last time), my PCP

changed it to MS Contin...it's not AS effective, but it helps enough I can

get by. As a matter of fact, it's THIS PCP that switched me from IR meds to

ER meds..after a sleep study that found I had no apnea, but was waking up at

least 25-100 times a night with PAIN. Every time I moved, I'd wake up a

bit, and often cry with the pain. Once the sleep doctor sent the

information to my doctor, he put me on the ER meds for nighttime, then a

month later, put me on ER meds with Oxycodone for breakthrough.

Marta

[Guest guest]

Lyndi,

Most GP will not manage pain patients. My internal medicine doctor is great but

was up front that she doesn't take on pain patients , she refers them to pain

management specialists. I agree with your points.

She has been a God Send though as when I could not get into my pain management

doctor and had to go out to town and help with my Dad, she gave me prescriptions

to cover me and we coordinated with my pain management doctors contract and

nurse.

She also saw me when I had a virus and was vomiting up my pain meds which would

make me short and she made sure it was documented so I would not violate my pain

contract.

It is very important to document pain and treatment and one of my pain

management doctors required I keep a pain diary and functional assessment (what

I could physically do). Each visit, we reviewed them and changed my treatment

plan as needed.

This documentation protected my doctor and helped myself and him. He started out

with Dr. Forest Tenent who wrote " The Intractable Pain Patients Survival Guide "

in The National Foundation for Pain and helped me immensely understanding my

pain.

pain-topics.org/pdf/IntractablePainSurvival is the link you can find this guide.

I learned the difference in " chronic pain " and intractable pain which Dr. Tenent

and other Doctors define as and Dr. Tenent relates the communication you will

encounter in his introduction in the guide as :

However, true IP, as defined here, is constant, severe, disabling pain, which

causes changes in pulse rate, blood pressure, and adrenal hormone production.

This form of pain is relatively rare. Control of IP requires the daily use of

prescription medication. I estimate that one IP case occurs among about every

thousand chronic pain patients.

Due to IP's rarity, almost every doctor, insurance plan, hospital, or family

member you encounter will initially assume you are just another, average,

chronic pain patient who can get by with the standard first line treatments such

as exercise, positive mental attitude, acupuncture, massage, and

non-prescription

drugs. To survive, you will constantly have to fight this misconception, and you

must educate most of the people you encounter.

IP patients all require a custom-made, one-of-a-kind treatment

I actually had a card with my Doctors number and certification that I was an

" intractable pain patient " and that he was to be called and consulted if needed

and verification of my treatment plan.

I did present this to the ER when I had to go there a couple of times for other

conditions and the nurses and Doctors were confused but impressed and did not

know really how to address someone who told them, " I am an intractable pain

patient, I take pain medications at levels you might not prescribe, but have

been titered to that amount to relieve my pain which is documented with testing,

observations, and backed by research.

Unfortunately, this doctor passed away last year leaving a great hole for many

pain patients but I drove three hundred miles once a month for three years to

get treatment to this day has not been changed.

If I had not seen him and had the documentation he requested of me and was in my

medical files for other doctors I have seen.

The American Pain Foundation and other pain societies do list pain physicians by

state. The best thing you can do as a pain patient is to become as educated as

you can about your condition by research and hopefully can present it to your

doctor if needed to assist you.

I did this by asking the Doctor his opinion on a subject I had researched and

has he ever heard of it ? I hope for every one a good pain doctor. I had to

change my doctor last year as all I had was a Nurse Practitioner that I peed in

a cup and she wrote out prescriptions and I felt doomsday every time I left the

office and I had to ask the Nurse if I could be seen by the Doctor who initially

saw me and was " franchising " pain management clinics by soliciting single pain

doctors and becoming part of a " group " that had surgical clinics for epidurals

and invasive procedures. This bothered me and was not I initially had.

I guess the main point is to get a Doctor who meets your needs and you might

have to search and " interview " the doctors.

Bennie