Tips for working with your doctor to help pain

I agree. If they were the ones enduring it, their attitude might be more sympathetic.

I thought the primary job of health care professionals was to alleviate suffering. Apparently not.

They wonder why suicide rates are climbing, especially among the elderly. If anything, I'm surprised the rate isn't higher.

Severe chronic pain is slow torture. Doctors should not be enablers of torture.

Hi I agree, but the problem is the US Gov't involvement with Drs. Unless they are awful 90% of Dr's do not want their patients in pain. The elderly if issued pain med see a specialist. Here they are given tests - suicidal, pills counted at end of month before refill. And the pharmacy has no problem yelling name and medicine which has stigma Yet any age over 10 can drink and in some households steal the liquor and drink Some states now cocaine, meth crystals? Hard drugs are available for free. No program just bring Dr's note. I bet if one of those who voted for pain meds no cost are enjoying their high. In the meantime your Mom or Pops is not enjoying the daily pain
1 for the bad guys 0 for the elder population who we should respect and want to enjoy life

I totally agree. I am elderly and sometimes I think they want to just do away with us.

Just wondering if you have a pain clinic that can access your pain and treat you close by? People that abuse pain medicine have made it incredibly hard on those that need it. I pray you find someone who can help you with this and you get the meds you need for relief. That has got to be beyond miserable to hurt like that. Praying for you right now.

@scottrl, you raise a great thread on doctors' treatment. I had this response in another forum and thought I would post it here too.

If those we rely on - the doctors - treat us with indifference, how do they think it makes us feel? Some doctors have been so desensitized they treat us like a number; if there is no solution they move us on; in some cases, they say (in not so many words) we are lying to get more pain drugs, or if your doctor moves their practice or closes it, you then try a few other clinics to find the help you desperately need – you are accused of "doctor shopping."

If we had cancer instead of pain, would we be treated like that – I THINK NOT! Imagine the outrage – cancer patients treated like criminals, disrespected, and denied adequate treatment. At some point, the Government and many doctors have to realize pain is a condition we have no control over, and just because some people abuse pain medication, why do the rest of us have to be treated the same way? As our population gets older, pain will be an increasing issue with an aging population. Many years ago, I told myself I refuse to live in pain and have no life, so I will responsibly manage the condition using prescribed medication to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. I was treated by one pain specialist who cut everyone's medication by 25%. He told me he did this because the DEA would be less likely to audit his books, and he would have fewer questions asked of him by the government. How is that a responsible behavior by a trained specialist? yet I can see his point, as his job is on the line. Two wrongs do not make it suitable for us!

In many ways, the government is to blame for its overreaching attitude and for looking at pain management as only the number of pills issued to a person (without understanding their condition) or how those prescriptions can be used by irresponsible people in the public. Yet in this day and age, they still allow smoking to be legal and, surprise, surprise, make money off it through taxes, yet we all pay the price through our taxes many years later as those cigarettes cause many medical issues. Smoking is a choice; pain is not; we did not choose it; it was a card we were dealt. If a specialist oversees our pain management, isn't that a responsible way to manage the disease, we have? That is the way other conditions, and their treatments are addressed by medical professionals.

If those we are supposed to trust do not treat us with the respect we deserve for our condition, how are we supposed to feel? I dream of the day pain will be measured and managed through individual data, and our treatments will then be designed in the best interests of us (the long-suffering). Because pain cannot be measured in an individual (no doubt you have all had to fill out the pain charts), for example, glucose levels - therefore in many outside people's eyes, does chronic pain exist as a disease, or is it in our all heads and we want the supposed high? We unfortunately have a medical condition, and we just want to live a decent life - is that too much to ask?

I still hope to see a change in pain management and medical attitude in my lifetime.

People wonder why pain medication shopping in other countries is on the rise. I never knew such a thing existed, but I had a friend who was driven by sheer desperation after being injured by a drunk driver and suffering severe nerve-related pain. His doctor stopped his medication due to the pressure from the government to reduce the dispensing of pain medicine. He decided he had two options: take his life or try and live a normal life where his pain was under control.

It is not fair that he ever had to make such a decision as he was injured by someone who was driving drunk yet walked away unharmed. No one should feel they need to go down this path, but he is alive, responsibly managing his pain (this is not about getting high or abusing pain medicine, it is about living a normal life), and his five children still have a father. While I do not condone this way of doing things, it does show what poor decision-making at the top drives people to do in desperation.

It is time this country has an honest debate about managing pain responsibly instead of this knee-jerk reaction because of what the irresponsible are doing. How about addressing the actions of the irresponsible and helping those in genuine need - is this too much to ask? I wonder how different it would be if those in charge of this country lived in severe pain - would how this issue is being managed be different?

in reply to @scottrl I read your post with great interest and could not agree with you more on anything that you have written. Not too long ago I told my PCP that I wanted to feel like I "mattered" to him and to Sutter. His response, "Do you want another doctor?" Last night I finally had a response from the liver specialist to whom I posed a question after a CT scan revealed a lesion on my liver, and in my question I told her that I was reminded of an earlier comment she made to me during a video visit, and with whom a friend was sitting next to me and taking very copious notes because I do not hear well, and the doctor is from India. During that appointment she said to me that the radiologist cannot make a diagnosis, only the doctor can make the diagnosis of whatever. So, I mentioned in my message to her that I was asking about the lesion because I had remembered what she had told me in the past about radiologists. She told me that she did not recall making the comment, or that I had "misinterpreted" the comment and that further questions should be addressed with my gastro doctor who I filed a grievance against over a year ago when he essentially threw me out of his office because I was asking too many questions. This has been been my experience over the past 3.5 years while my clinicians try to diagnose my problem, while in the meantime I have lost an enormous amount of weight, take pain pills like candy and well, just continue to put one foot in front of the other.

While watching 60 Minutes this past weekend, I was especially astonished by what the fellow who developed IA had to say about what he had built. While it all sounds very dangerous, perhaps in the future there is hope for many of us who suffer, as soon there will be robots diagnosing us, and it is anticipated that AI will know a lot more about us than those doctors who choose not to treat us.

Furthermore, the next time I have to fill out a form that asks how I sexually identify myself, I told a friend I will check "other" and write down the word "unicorn."

I totally understand and agree

in reply to @csearch For what it is worth, I have a fire safe in my closet in which I keep my stock pile in the event Medicare cuts me off

A simple no notice urine test like my pain Mgt does. This will scare the abusers. Plus pharmacies cant fill till a certain date. So a very few on here complain but still have the pain. We don’t know the true story. One yesterday was complaining about her anti anxiety meds. She’s on 6 mg a day!!! That’s unreal! Blame her docs for allowing it to go that high. Which in turn makes others have a bad name for using. I get yelled at for not taking enough pain meds. But they constipate me and sick of 2 years of miralax and senna. Ugh.