Re: Pain management docs in Georgia and South Carolina to Angie

[Guest guest]

Angie,

Well, you know I have a PM doctor here on Hilton Head Island. He's

not as great as the one I had in Savannah at the clinic, but that one

moved to Virginia and I had to find a replacement. It would be quite

a trip for you to come all the way to Hilton Head just for pain

management! The one I see now is an anestheseist, and he's okay.

He's kept me on what the other PM doctor suggested, the Duragesic

patch with oxycodone for BT, and 18,500 mgs of Neurontin, without any

pressure about doing a block.

A previous member of the PAI, , who lives in Edgefield, SC,

searched high and low for a good PM doctor a few years ago. She went

to several in Cola, then one in Augusta and another one someplace

else, Aiken, I think. I know she had a lot of problems finding

someone. Most of them hadn't dealt with CP patients, or were doctors

that wouldn't treat with narcotics. All they wanted to do was celiac

blocks for pain management, and that didn't work for her. She's also

a patient of Dr. ., and has SOD along with her CP. I'll see if I

can get in touch with her and see who she ever found.

I know a PM doctor in Cola, he's a friend of my husband's best friend

who lives in Cola, but I won't recommend him.....lol! I talked with

him two years ago and he is totally against giving patients any

narcotics at all, he believes that the best thing to do is to wean the

patient off of all their pain medication and for them to relearn how

to just " deal with the pain " . He said that the use of the narcotics

sends a signal to the brain to ask for more and more, and that every

time you took pain medication you were signalling the brain to require

more each time, whether you needed it or not!!! After a heated

discussion about this with him one night at our friend's house in

Cola, I decided I was really glad that I didn't live up there and have

to depend on someone like him for my pain care.....yikes! For a

while, he almost had my husband convinced that his method was the

right way to treat the pain... He made it sound like I would soon be

a drug junky and totally wiped out within a few months if I didn't do

what he suggested. That was two years ago, and my brain, although

crazy at times, seems to still be functioning pretty well, don't you

think? Hey, you don't have to answer that, I don't want to put you on

the spot....hehe!

Some of the things he said totally contradicted what I've heard other

pain management professionals teach. There was an excellent PM doctor

who spoke at last year's PAI Symposium, and he certainly felt

differently about treatment than this friend of a friend did!!

Anyhow, let me see if I can locate and see who she finally

ended up seeing, and I'll get back to you, okay?

With love, hope and prayers,

Heidi

Heidi H. Griffeth

www.pancassociation.org/anthology#Heidi.html

Bluffton, SC

SC State & SE Regional Representative

Pancreatitis Association, International

www.health.groups.yahoo.com/group/pancreatitis/

Note: All comments or advice are personal opinion only, and should

not be substituted for professional medical consultation.