Pain in the Absence of Elevated Labs

[Guest guest]

Rhonda,

You wrote, " Do you have any ideas on how to communicate that to the Dr's? If

you do please let me know. I just get this awful feeling that they think I'm

making up the pain. "

I understand that. I have battled that on several occasions. Sometimes I

have had a good team of doctors, but when there has been a vacancy, locating a

new one who understands the disease process, as well as trusts the patients,

has been hard to find. I recently talked to my new Internal medicine doctor

about this exact thing. I was pleasantly surprised when he told me that there

is nothing that irritate him more when a doctor makes a patient feel bad for

expressing they are in pain. The only problem is that he states he is not a

pain management specialist and requires one to be on the team. Finding that

person is a challenge.

Karyn E. , RN,

Exec. Director, Pancreatitis Association International

5th Annual Symposium on Pancreatitis: September 16 & 17, 2005