Well grain of salt, everybody has their opinion and I too am a Christian who tends to agree with you. I live in the bible belt and up until a few months ago, I was on Lortab 10/500 x 4 a day. I was miserable. It was because of HW that I documented my pain and finally stood up to the doctor at my pm group and had the papers from Chronic Pain 101 to show how much pain I was actually in. I feel better than I've felt in years. (which isn’t really saying a lot, but you get what you get) By now, the new meds are working well and by all means, I am not pain free by any stretch of the imagination, but I deal. Mikel is not in the bible belt and in fact is way up north where you'd think someone had the "forward thinking" one needs for pain management. So, what I've learned through all this is that it doesn't matter where you are who you are or anything else, you are going to run into a doctor who will not give enough pain meds to help. It's a shame, it's horrible, it makes me angry, but we deal and go on. I have a sister who is a doctor as is her husband. They are very careful with pain meds and it makes my sister really angry, but she has had a dear friend from med school that got into lots of trouble trying to manage meds after a surgery and the family got mad that the guy, who was a recovering addict, was getting "addicted" again. It changed my sister and her husband (he is a urological surgeon) both. I have another sister who is a nurse practitioner that does more drug therapy than the doctors do in many, many respect. I was on Cymbalta which for me caused constipation and then a ruptured colon. I was also on Lortab at the time for my Syrinx. My sister the practitioner came to the hospital in the middle of the night while I was having emergency surgery. When the surgeon was telling my husband about the surgery, my “dear” sister told the surgeon that I was a drug addict and she told the surgeon that she was a surgical nurse! Unfortunately, because of the woman I used to call sister, I was limited to how much medication I got. The doctor kept saying, “your sister” this and that. There are many awful things that happened, but with a 12 inch incision on my stomach and the pain that went with it added to the sorrow knowing my sister, for her own agenda needed to tell lies; it was the most horrible time of my life.
So, grain of salt, we all have our issues with pain meds and whether or not we get what we need, but I know more horror stories of people who don’t get what they need that those who do, no matter where you live. For the record, what you said was not offensive to me personally, at all. You simply sound passionate as if you have experienced this first person.
Stac/Catz4
DX’d-Syringomyelia C-1 to T-1, DDD, Diabetes Type II, Migraines, Chronic Muscle Spasms, IBS, Panic Disorder, ICC, Hypothyroidism, Bipolar Disorder, Fibromyalgia. Emergency surgery for ruptured bowel in '05 w/colostomy and takedown in '06. Frozen Shoulder and Torn Rotator Cuff in Left Shoulder. Surgery for shoulder recently, now in Physical Therapy.