Discovery Channel program

[Guest guest]

This morning I watched a program regarding the issues of managing chronic pain.

You can watch it by going to discoverychannelCME.com. It was very good but while

I was watching it, I found myself getting angry because of the attitude of the

medical profession in general about pain patients. I have intermittent chronic

pain if that makes sense. In other words, I am not necessarily in pain every

second of the day but I have some form of pain every day. In fact I have not

had a pain free day that I can remember since my cancer surgery 8 years ago. My

pain though comes from several different areas and I think that that must be

some of the harder pain to treat. Since I have severe cramping pain every day

along with head, neck, and back pain along with intermittent bone pain, my pain

cannot be treated with just one modality. I have found that I do as much as I

possibly can to treat my own pain through non medication means but the pain

frequently gets the upper hand in certain situations no matter what I do.

One glaring example is when I have a bout of kidney stones. I suffer from

chronic kidney stones due to having had my stomach removed 8 years ago. Anyway,

my primary care doctor who I really like prescribed 1 darvocet pill to be taken

every 8 hours! Now for those of you who have had a kidney stone, you know all

too well the extreme acute pain that goes with it. One episode occurred after I

had had lithotripsy to break some stones up. They never explained to me that

the pain could get really bad while I was passing the pieces of stone. Well it

did and I ended up in the ER in agony. My blood pressure was through the roof

due to the pain. The ER doctor asked what I had been given for the pain and

when I told him about the darvocet and that that was all I was given, he had a

fit. He could not believe that that prescription was all I had to treat this

pain. I spent the night in the ER getting IV pain medication to help me through

this crisis. How many medical resources are used up when we end up in the ER for

these types of crisis?

If we as pain patients went into the hospital with another chronic illness,

wouldn't the doctor be held accountable for under treating that illness if we

had negative consequences from it? So why are so many physicians able to get

away with turning us away or inadequately treating our pain issues? Is chronic

pain and it's underlying causes considered an illness or not?

And when I read on here the stories about those who have been accused for

whatever reason of being addicts and immediately dismissed so that they not only

are forced into immediate withdrawl left to suffer with their pain, I wonder why

are the medical people not held to account for this just like they make us

accountable?

This all keeps me away from pain management all together and I find that I

suffer on my own with what is sometimes awful pain from my situation. I find

myself very stressed wondering how I will manage if my pain gets worse for some

reason. This is so unfair to all of us.

Sorry this is so long but these thoughts are in my head today. I got up with a

lot of pain today.

Terry