Jenny, I could be you writing about your sessions with pain management. My visits are mainly to get my pain pump adjusted or refilled. "Pain management" seems to be a misnomer. As you mentioned, the doc asks how you are (as does mine), then writes or types. In the eight months that I have been visiting my current "Pain management specialist", he has not once mentioned a possible different road to finding out why the pain pump is not providing relief. I finally said to him at our last session, "Don't you have a network of colleagues that you could reach out to and discuss my case. So far you have not been able to really help me". He finally said that he did know someone whom he does reach out to periodically and will speak to him about my baffling case. I go back to him next week. Any bets as to whether he actually spoke about my case to him?
I became more proactice recently, learning that I have to become my own, best advocate. I just had my old spinal cord stimulator removed since it had stopped working three years ago. Any guesses as to who made this decision? Yes, I did. Maybe you need to be a little more firm your pain doc. After all, she supposedly works for you. Ask her to reach out to her colleagues as I did. Worth a try. Right? I wish you all the best.