Re: Risk of Loosing our Pain Management to Patty

[Guest guest]

Hi Patty,

Thanks for your comments. My appointment is tomorrow morning and I intend

to do exactly as you suggested. It was my idea all along to try to reduce the

meds, I thought maybe it was a good time to try since I had been doing so

well, and naturally the PM doctor was in favor. I do hope that he'll understand

and see that it isn't working if I'm taking all of the short acting meds

instead.

Before I would have 10-15 left over each month that I hadn't had to use.

One thing that he said bothered me, and that was that I would probably find

that I wasn't able to be as active as I have been without the stronger dosage of

duragesic. The whole purpose for the 75 mg. duragesic was TO KEEP ME

MORE ACTIVE, instead of having to spend a several days each week in bed

when on a lower dose. I don't plan or want to exchange my activeness for a

lower dosage. There aren't any benefits in that for me. If I need to take a

stronger med in order to function more on a full time basis, that is what I plan

to do. I'm not going to sacrifice my ability to function on a normal level for

a

lower med dosage. Let's just hope that the doctor agrees with my attitude

about this.

Too bad that so many of the doctor's offices are staffed with those people who

think they know more about what's good for you than your doctor or you do.

My other doctor used to have a nurse just like the one you spoke of, she was

always trying to reduce my pain meds behind my back, thinking that she was

in charge. A couple times I caught her trying to get the doctor, when he was

really busy and not paying full attention, to sign a script for an old, lower

dosage of my meds. The updated, increased dosage was right there in my

charts, but she would flip through the pages and go to one of the older ones

and write the script out for that, hoping that the doctor wouldn't notice. The

first time I was already out of the office and on my way home before I noticed

that the script was wrong, and by the time I turned around and drove back to

the doctor's office, he had already left for the day. The nurse played dumb

and said " she'd forgotten " about the increase...even though I'd been on the

increased dosage for 4 months. I caught her doing it again a few months

later, and fortunately told the doctor as it was happening.

It's a good thing that his nurse is on the ball and understood what you were

going through. It's always a bonus if you can get one of the nurse's " on your

side " , so to speak. Whenever I find one that's as considerate as that nurse

seems to be, I make sure that I'm always as pleasant and courteous to them

as I can be. I even took Christmas cookies and home-made fat free candy to

one of mine last year just to thank her for looking out for me.

I hope you're mending as well as you can after your hospitalization. As far as

I'm concerned, the best thing about the hospital is getting out of it!!!

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.