Help Me With My Asshead Pain Doc PLEASE

In my late 20's with 6 lumbar spine operations here. Have an optional 7th but have been recommended against it by my surgeons. Im already on a giant dose of opiates daily, able to stay out of severe pain about 75% of the time.

 

Dude I feel for you. especially so young. I know how you feel. Keep your head up. PEASE

 

bluez; I have the same thing diagnosed, although without the extreme pain. it has been manageable pain but getting worse for three years. recently accupuncture has helped slightly, although it could also be that i've been using more as well

on my mri, all they found was a "slight disc protrusion"

 

yeah im getting acupuncture done too.
but im hoping that the mri will reveal something new.
my grandfather has degenerative disk desease so i dunno if that can be passed down from generation to generation.
maybe? i dunno

the meds sure make life easier though, thats for sure.

 

Dilly,
How did your doctors appt. go today. I hope it went well, and if it didn't I hope you told him you were going to find a doctore that can help with your chronic condition

 

I got DDD L3 to S1 but its not a real disease in the way that something like cancer is, injury to the back and spine is what causes DDD. However having a weak back that can injure easy thus causing DDD could be blamed on genetics I suppose.

 

Yeah dill. How did it go? I really hate doctors like this... They are able to prescribe meds for a reason!! Man, I don't know about some doctors. Unfortunatly all we get in the army is ibuprofen! EVERY time for EVERYthing. If we get teeth pulled then we get 5mg percs... At least you are getting ultram? I don't know. I hate some doctors.

 

As far as the ultram goes, it doesn't work for shit. I don't know, maybe it does for some people, but it just made me twitch and gave me a blasting migraine that lasted days.

Speaking of which, I had to change my appointment to this morning, I couldn't move last night with the migraine I had; I'm leaving in 20 minutes. I'll keep you guys posted, and thanks for all your help.

 

so if i do have DDD, should the mri reveal that?
im just sick with putting up with this shit.
i've been seeing docs for 3 years now,
and although they have confirmed that i have scoliosis and a winging scapula,
they don't think that its either of those causing my chronic pain.
thats why im hoping they'll find something new on the mri results.

 

Lol. Good ol vitamin M. Hooah.

 

^^Ya that shouldn't be causing your pain.
I had 5 buldged disc for 15yrs and it was hard to get pain meds till I got a little older..
Cause alot of that can be fixed with exercise. which it did help..
But when they started rupturing The pain was to much and had to have surgery..
I hope they find something, or you might have a hard time getting your meds continued.
They have cut me off cold turkey a bunch of times after an mri showed nothing new..

 

alright cool, thanks man.
yeah i hope she doesn't cut me off if the mri doesn't reveal anything new.
she knows that i need my pills.
i quit my job, put off school for yet another year and fell into depression because of my back pain.
i don't think she'll cut me off though.
i've already had 2 other x-rays and she's still ok with giving me my meds.

 

I'm not a doctor (but I play one on the internet). But I did work for an orthopedist/chiropractic clinic while I was in college, and my sister and mom are nurses. I actually asked my sister this morning if your DDD would show on an MRI and she said that it definitely would, along with spinal stenosis which you probably also have. She also said you should have a neuro workup and nerve conduction studies, because the level of pain relative to the diagnosis suggests serious nerve involvement. I trust my sister absolutely (she helped deliver both my kids); see what the MRI says and get a neuro workup if you haven't had one already. You're too young to be stuck in this cycle for the rest of your life, and without sounding preachy (I have no business preaching anyway lulz) opiates are really bad for your bones, aside from being addictive, so in the long run the opioid therapy WILL make the condition worse as far as degeneration, osteoporosis, brittle bones, etc.

So I went to the doc; I refused to go into the procedure room, I told the receptionist to put me in a regular consult room because I needed to speak to him. He comes in all "I'm so sorry you had a bad reaction to the ultram" blah blah ray ray. So I cut him right off and told him, "Look, doctor, I'm coming to pain management to MANAGE my pain. Not to have useless procedures, not to have my concerns dismissed, and certainly not to experiment with a bunch of drugs that do more harm than good. I have been incapacitated ALL WEEK. I was AT THE HOSPITAL. I had CLONIC SEIZURES from the medication that YOU prescribed because you didn't want to give me anything stronger than 5/325 percocets twice a day. Oxycodone with apap is not extended release and does not last 12 hours; I spoke to the pharmacist, the ER doc, the neurologist, and my sister and they all agree that it's ridiculous for me to be in this much pain when I've been in pain MANAGEMENT for nearly two months now. So what are we going to do, doctor? Because if I don't get some pain relief today, I'm going to have to find another physician, and, when my PCP asks me WHY I need another referral, I'm going to have to tell her the truth - that you're more interested in billing for procedures and multiple unnecessary office visits because you refuse to treat my pain, which is the reason I'm here. You're supposed to be treating the pain, PERIOD. I have a neurologist and an orthopedist and a regular doc and an OB/GYN; I don't need you to do anything but treat my pain. So are you going to treat my pain, or am I going to file a complaint?"

He looked at me. Then he said, "Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you trigger point injections for the spasms, and we'll write you some stronger medication for your pain. Then I'll see you in 2 weeks for an epidural, when you're feeling better and the spasms have settled down, but I'm not going to write valium for the spasms because it's too strong and I'm not comfortable writing benzos..."

I said fine to the trigger points (they do kind of help the spasms for a couple days, not much but at least enough that I can go to the gym and stuff). He does them, and says okay, see the girl at the desk for your scripts and to make an appointment for the epidural.

I go to the desk, and the chick gives me an appointment for the first; then she hands me my scripts. And what did he write me? ENDOCET (7.5 mg oxycodone 325 tylenol) twice a day instead of the 5/325 percs, and 300 mg of neurontin again. I just looked at her, and I said, "Where is the doctor?" She said he was doing a procedure. I took the scripts, went to the pharmacy, then I called his office (I'm not stupid, I wasn't going to say this before I got my pills) and told the receptionist to tell the "doctor" (and I use that term loosely) that I would be going to the Plan next week and letting them know what was going on. And that he could give HIMSELF the epidural in his DICK.

So...I have 60 endocets, a couple valium left, and a little bit of anesthetic in my muscles. I'm done, there's no reason to see this guy ever again.

Sorry this post is so long, but I'm pissed. Gotta get some work done, see y'all later.

 

Thats cool, I had one doc that was handing them out to me for 9 months, then one day after an MRI she said well we can't find anything new,I believe your hurting but I will get in trouble if I keep giving you pain meds..
She gave me one more script and that was it. I was then off to finding another doctor

 

There you go Dilly.
Right on, now you don't have to fuck with this dick head anymore, Move on to the next one.
and when you have to fill out the papaer work and it asks what meds your on, Say 40mg oxys 2 times a day.
I did that and got a little more than that.
Which was cool..

 

Yeah - and I have the bottle from my sister's guy to prove it too. I might even actually get treatment this time.

I'm pretty much just glad I have meds to get through the weekend, I have a Communion to go to tommorrow with Manfriend's family and I really wasn't looking forward to it with no meds. Although I could get my sister's guy to write me more, I don't want to bug him too much and wind up burning that particular bridge.

 

ok, thanks dilly.
i really appreciate you asking your sister about all this.
and no, i havn't had a neuro work up done.
but thanks for the advice, i'll mention that to my doc when i go back in.
this is why i joined these forums,
not only because i have a big interest in drugs,
but so i could talk to other people with CP issues.

and im also glad that your gonna be seeing a different doc.
after all you said to him, and the fuck gives you endocet!?
i mean, my doc also has me precribed endocet, but thats just for breakthrogh pain.
she also writes me a sript for 100mg of oxy a day on top of the endocet when i need it.
i can't believe that guy moved you from 5/325 percs to 7.5/325 endocet.
its practically the same thing for fuck sakes.
either this doc has no knowledge on the meds he's prescribing you,
or he doesn't believe that your in real pain.
either way, he's a complete fucking moron.

well, good luck on finding a new PM.
and hopefully your next one is more understanding of what PM actually means.

 

No problem, hon, whatever you need. She (my sister) knows what she's talking about - this is a woman who was ready to kill me 2 years ago when she found out I relapsed, but she knew how to get me into a suboxone program, AND she took my kids while I was in rehab and the sober house, and now that I've hurt myself she's being hugely helpful (even though I'm taking the opiates again). She totally believes that if medicine can alleviate suffering, the practitioner should do everything in his or her power to do just that. Even if it means writing opies. We don't always get along but I fully trust her medical judgment.

This guy is a quack; he only wants to do procedures, and he does them in his office so he doesn't have to wait for an authorization like he would if he (appropriately) did them in a hospital. I'm wondering if he even HAS hospital privileges. Whatever, I'm done with his ass. My PCP is really nice, so I'll just go talk to her Wednesday (I already made an appointment); I typed up the whole effing saga and emailed it to her so she knows what's up.

My frigging shrink just called to cancel, I was supposed to get new meds today (hopefully the kpin and something for sleep, the remeron she gave me caused me to have SERIOUS nightmares); oh well, now I have no excuse not to work all day.

 

I am glad you finally put that doctor in his place. It's actually easy to find out if a doctor will prescribe anything stronger. Simply tell him that the tylenol is killing your stomach, and you can barely take the APAP containing pills to try and manage the pain. Inform him that you do know that they have medications with Oxycodone only, and you think you will do better on them.

It's not a bad thing to tell the doctor what you think will work for you. If you are a legitimate pain patient, you have MRI's and real problems, and you have tried all the weak shit he has thrown at you, don't be afraid to tell him it's not working.

You need to ask around...and find a doctor that isn't afraid to manage pain. Honestly, it isn't hard to find one. They are popular for a reason.