Re: Pain Management to Sandy

[Guest guest]

<he told me the strongest pain medication out there that can be prescribe is

the percocet 5's that I have. Isn't that a joke!!! He told me that if my pain

was

worse than the percocet could handle and I didn't wanna go to the ER, that I

needed to just " suck up the pain " . I truly don't think he knows that I know

differently. Or am I wrong and is it different for a D.O. MD in prescribing

than it

is for a just a MD?

Sandy,

Well, you know that what he said isn't true. I don't think it's any different,

that

an MD can prescribe whatever they want, but most of the general practice

doctors aren't experienced enough with anything stronger than Percocet and

many are afraid of the stronger narcotic analgesics.

Perhaps I'm wrong on this, though, or the rules vary from state to state. I

remember when I started on 5's, and then needed to increase to something

stronger. My first GI wasn't comfortable with giving me anything more until I'd

seen a Pain Mangement Doctor and she recommended the duragesic patch.

When the pain got so bad right before my diabetic ketoacidosis, I'd been

taking the Percocet 10/325's and they weren't doing a thing. The PM doctor

had written to my GI that if the 10's weren't able to help enough with the pain,

that the next step was a duragesic patch.

He could see that I was in horrible pain then, on a 24 hour basis, and was

very quick to prescribe the duragesic 25's, but he'd never had any experience

with them. When I talked to him about it, he told me that he gave Dilaudid to

the only other pancreatitis patient that he'd had who had pain as bad as mine.

I'd already tried the Dilaudid and that hadn't worked either.

Then later on when I was seeing my new GI after I fired the first one, he

continued with the patch since it had been working so well for me. I had a

session last year where he had to increase the dosage to 50 mgs. and then

when the 50's weren't enough, he tried me on MS Contin, but he admitted that

he was getting out of his realm, and it would be better for me to see a Pain

Management Specialist from that point on. There were some laws apparently

that prohibited how much of the Oxycontin that he could prescribe for me, and

because of that, he said it would be better all around if I saw a professsional.

At first he was going to be the one who wrote the scripts, using the PM

doctor's recommendations, but it ended up that now the PM doctor writes all

my scripts for narcotic analgesics, and the GI is totally out of the loop. I

did

have to sign a Pain Contract with the PM doctor, but so far haven't had any

problem with that.

Your doctor may be telling you the truth, or it might just be that he doesn't

want

to deal with anything stronger because he'd have to report it, and doesn't want

to have to deal with all the additional paperwork. But mine in GA, (a GI) was

able to prescribe anything he wanted. He just felt that a narcotics specialist

would be more acquainted with all the different narcotics and the intracies of

their dosages than he was, and would be a better person to determine what I

needed. I hope this helps.

With love, hope and prayers,

Heidi

Heidi H. Griffeth

South Carolina

SC & SE Regional Rep.

PAI

Note: All comments or advice are based on personal experience or opinion

only, and should not be subsituted for consultation with a medical

professional.