so annoyed

[sunkacola]

Once I went on the antidepressant medication last summer I found I could cut down on the pain meds a bit, going from 3x day to 2x day on most days.

So last appointment I told the Dr. I could just get a scrip for 2xday.

I had a few left over that time, because I had cut down, so did not fill the scrip for a few days.

But this past month it did not go as well, and I took 3x day more days, then would only take 1 some days, carefully rationing so that I would not run out completely before my appt.

At the appointment yesterday I saw a nurse practitioner instead and she said that because I had run out "early" she would not let the scrip be filled for another 8 days.

So, I am 8 days with no pain relief whatever. This is not good.

I will survive of course, but I probably will have to cancel my clients and therefore will miss a week of income which is serious. Plus I am in pain with no relief. I feel as though I am being punished when I have done nothing wrong and am angry about it.

OK. I am done Venting, Moaning, and Complaining. Glad there is a section here for that.

 

[vickythecat]

This is the right place to vent!

I completely get your frustration. My tramadol prescriptions had been a problem for many months. My GP can only fill it when the package with 30 pills is finished - 30 pills = 30 days. Not a day earlier. But as we all know, there are weekends, months with 31 days, holidays, days off when the other GP won't prescribe me (stupid rules), pills going awol etc., so I would end up having weekends when I had nothing. I had to wait till Monday or the end of a holiday. It was hell and caused quite a lot of anxiety.

I was doubtful my GP would be understanding, but when I told her about my problem, she thankfully had complete understanding and she now is prescribing me 2 packages a month the next 3 months so I have a good back-up at home.

You might also consider asking your GP to prescribe you 3 pills a day for a while, but just use the 2. Keep the extra's for the 'just in case' days like you are now in.

Believe me, it has taken away so much anxiety from my life. So stupid to have anxiety about a pill! I am thankful for tramadol and that it works, but I hate how dependent I am of it. But hey, life sucks, so be it, tramadol is my BFF

 

[Peaceandquiet]

Little miss nurse practitioner punishing you! That's terrible. I'm angry just thinking about it. Wish I could give you some of mine. X

 

[Lubkos way]

I must warn you to be careful when you run out of pain meds,and you seek to get to extras for the inevitable bad days.They occur to all of us,on a schedule that we can't predict.If they suspect that you are seeking more than you are prescribed,they may cut you off,and put it in your permanent file.This will make your life hell to get any pain meds,without any understanding about your predicament.Just something to keep in mind,so that you are not falsely judged!

 

[Peaceandquiet]

Most good doctors can pick a drug seeker when they see one. In this case, Sunkacola, I feel you have been treated poorly as you do not abuse drugs from what I know of you. Thank you for your vent and sorry I reacted strongly. The nurse was only following protocol I suppose.

I hope you are able to manage your pain for now.

 

[sunkacola]

You are right, Peaceandquiet, I do not and never would abuse prescription drugs. I would actually be scared to do so, not knowing what might happen, and I live without other people who could help me if I had an emergency, and almost an hour's drive from medical help.

I am having a very hard time not having any meds at all, and am in pain. On top of other very stressful things that are happening this week, it is a bit much. But this too shall pass!

Actually, caching a few pills is a good idea, because the rules are so pathetically rigid that they do not take into account that we are dealing here with human beings.

I really need to change doctors, but don't know if I will be able to do that successfully. I am not seeing a GP (don't have one). The GP I was seeing refused to prescribe pain killers, so I went to a Pain Clinic. They prescribe what I need, but going there is HELL.
The doctor is not so bad, but the environment that I have to be in, in order to see him is completely toxic to me.

First, the place is refrigerated down to a temperature that chills me into blue fingertips even if I wear a coat. (in the summer time)

Second, the chairs they have are so terribly uncomfortable that once I have spent two hours......and it is always at least two hours.......sitting in them waiting, I am in pain every time, sometimes my back goes into spasms.

Third, every single time, and I mean EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. they screw something up in that office!

They phone the scrip into the wrong pharmacy even though I told them three times where to send it and wrote it down for them.

They write the prescription wrong...for the wrong amount or put the wrong date on it.

Sometimes the prescription has totally contradictory instructions on it, like: "Take one pill three times a day, maximum allowed two pills a day."

When they make one of these stupid errors on the prescription, and if I don't catch it before I leave the office, the pharmacy will refuse to fill it.
That means I have to go all the way back to the office (which is about 45 minute drive from the pharmacy), and wait in one of those chairs until someone (usually over an hour later) gives me a corrected scrip.

I cannot call them because there's no way to get a human being on the line. You leave a message (at an office that is 100 miles away) and MAYBE they get it, and MAYBE they call back 2 or 3 days later.

They won't call the corrected prescription in to the pharmacy, even though that would be fine with the pharmacy. I have to go there (hour drive from my house) 45 minutes from the pharmacy, get the piece of paper, and take it (45 minutes drive) to the pharmacy, and then wait there for an hour to get it filled, and then drive home (45 minutes ).

If I do catch a mistake in the scrip before I leave it means I will sit there for at least another half an hour in pain and freezing before they get me a corrected one.

They forget I am there and put four people ahead of me so I sit there an extra 45 minutes to hour.

By the time I leave, (having taken a minimum of 4 hours out of my day, and often longer) I am invariably utterly stressed out, and in far more pain than I was in when I went in.
Sometimes it takes me a full day to recover from that, and I dread going there.

AND they do random drug testing, and insist that I bring in the last pill bottle so they can count what is left or see it is empty (as if I couldn't have just emptied the bottle at home and brought in an empty bottle! How stupid is that!?)

But not all doctors will prescribe pain meds, and I don't know how to find another one close enough to where I live who will do so and who takes the insurance I have.

Thanks for letting me rant. I just needed to.

 

[Peaceandquiet]

Hi sunkacola,

I recently changed doctors as you know and I'm so glad I did! It took me ages to work up the energy and confidence to do it. I must have some kind of shame, I think...about having fibro....fear of judgement. I needed someone with compassion.

I approached the new GP with a totally truthful and honest plea for help in collaborating with me to make a plan of attack so that I could get my life back. I explained that I avoid outings because of fear of pain and that I avoid pain killers for fear of addiction but for my general health I know I need to get out more...need more exercise, but can't....need to sleep, but can't. Together we worked on solutions and I listened to her advice.

Maybe things are different where you are but if you can pay the extra for a private GP instead of that dreadful clinic you described, you might feel more validated as I did. Previously, I had made enquiries at the surgery to ask who was their most 'gentle and understanding' doctor because I had sensitive issues and I needed someone who was a 'listener'.

Just a thought. All the best.

 

[sunkacola]

Thanks, Peaceandquiet.

Basically here unless you are rich you have to go to a doctor who takes the insurance you have and mine is for low income people so is limited. This clinic is dreadful, though, and I want to stop going there. To pay for a consult with a Dr would be so expensive I cannot do it in order to try out new doctors.

It's just that it makes me tired even to think about what I would have to go through to find a new place to go. I can change doctors only once a month (which is actually pretty reasonable, I think), so if I tried going to another and it didn't work out I'd have to wait a month.

And if I leave the clinic I have been going to they won't take me back if I ever wanted to go back. Not that I would want to, but what if I couldn't find another Dr. And so on.

 

[Lubkos way]

It seems we all have issues with getting the support that we deserve in our so called modern medicine atmosphere.

Here we all get to line up and wait,wait,wait(except for the rich,they get service within a few days!)and get an appointment to see a gastroenterologist,or any other specialist,if you are lucky you can get to see them in 9 or 12 months.I have had chronic IBS symptoms caused by a GP that WAS incompetent for the last 20 years,and no one will or can help me with this problem.

I am still waiting for a call for a colonoscopy appointment,and my request was made last february!It sucks to be made to feel like I am a second,or worst class citizen in my own f****** country!This greed that has taken over everything, has made me look to other avenues to find relief,and I must say that making my own protocals has helped more than all the doctors combined!!!

You will all know soon what they are,I am perpetually biting my tongue,holding it back.But,at the very least,it is a treatment that will lower pain levels dramatically and get rid of most IBS symptoms (I know,awesome eh!!) and you know what else?

Many of the freaky symptoms like waking up drenched in sweat is gone,I have lost over half my parasthesia numbness,I am sleeping better,I actually have naps again and after a half hour workout in the morning,I am ready to work because I just feel so much better.

I still need more time to heal,but I swear that for the first time,I can see signs and results,that my immune system has begun to function again!I am anxious to share it,at the Latest Dec 1 !!!

 

[diamond]

Glad something is working for you.

I know that sticking to a candida eliminating diet long term and taking coconut oil or caprylic acid and probiotics can help many people with gut/IBS issues.

I'm sure we will all be pleased to hear what it is that's helping you.

I personally dread ever taking antibiotics as they do reek havoc destroying all the good bacteria too and you were completely overloaded with them for h pylori.

 

[vickythecat]

First, the place is refrigerated down to a temperature that chills me into blue fingertips even if I wear a coat. (in the summer time)

Second, the chairs they have are so terribly uncomfortable that once I have spent two hours......and it is always at least two hours.......sitting in them waiting, I am in pain every time, sometimes my back goes into spasms.

Third, every single time, and I mean EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. they screw something up in that office!

I deal with the same, and it seems to happen with every doctor, every hospital. It has been driving me insane. My GP is a kind lady, she doesn't talk or suggest much, but listens and seems to know how I feel just by looking at me. But she and the ever changing computer system drive me crazy. She will prescribe me things, only put them in the computer, me not knowing what they are.

I go to the pharmacy, there they look in the system and say 'this is wrong, she can't give you this and this together on the same code she used'. Then they look at me like I should know better, like I should know which code she should use. ahhh....I am like I can't go back to the GP, how can we solve this? Then a few moments of silence, me in extreme anxiety, a colleague comes in and says 'yeah, we can bypass the code problem, it happens all the time'. Then I get my meds. But my frustration is off the roof.

And this happened with my mom as well. She can't leave the house for her repeat prescriptions, so I had to deal with them. I feel very anxious talking on the phone, talking to doctors/people, so it was really difficult, but the same thing happened again.

And I was made to wait on these really hard uncomfortable chairs in the hospital, in freezing temperatures, with the extremely bright white lights all over me, I was like 'are these people trying to make us sicker just by making us sit here so that they can make more money?" When they called my name after 30 minutes of waiting, I could barely get off the chair because it was so low, weird shaped, with no support anywhere...I was about to throw myself on the floor - would've been easier to get up from the floor than from that chair!!!

I really want to find the person who signed off on that purchase order for those stupid chairs and make them sit on those chairs all day, every day. Let them feel the pain....

 

[Lubkos way]

It feels so good to vent sometimes with someone who knows what it feels like to have huge spikes in stress for no good reason!It is frustrating not having any control over fibro,only to be treated with no respect by your doctor,and the poor environment he or she set up.


They act like it is ok to constantly be behind by hours on a regular basis,and then they then get attitude if you point it out!!They should be fined if they are later than 20 minutes,just like the rest of us would be fired for poor performance!

I think it is too bad that we are chained to them to get our meds,if it was not for that,I would stop going regularly.When I saw the gastroenterologist,I was suffering a horribly painful stabbing feeling in my lower left quadrant that has plagued me for 20 years on and off.When my fecal tests for blood were negative,I was told it is muscular.I waited over a year,only to be dismissed by Dr.useless old goat,meanwhile the stomach aches were almost daily(I felt like slapping him for the nonchalont way he said it,obviously he did not care at all)!

It got so bad,I ended up in emergency with excruciating pain 2 weeks later,and had a ct scan,an ultrasound of my gut,blood tests and urinalysis and as usual,NOTHING showed up!AHHHH!After 9 months of a stomach ache every morning,I could not take it anymore so I made the decision to go the experimental route.

Unbelievably,the FIRST morning after I started the treatment,my stabbing pain stopped,and it has not returned once!My IBS cramping has dropped by 75%It had tormented me for so long,I was blown away.Needless to say,I will NEVER EVER waste my time to see Dr.useless old goat ever again!Haha!

 

[sunkacola]

Lubkos, this country is no better than yours in terms of waiting for an appointment. To see a specialist, unless it is deemed an emergency, you always wait for months.

Unless, of course, you are rich.

Rich people live in a different world from mine.

And they have no understanding of what it is like on the other side.
Note::: doctors are rich. And they can get an appointment and medication at the snap of fingers through their colleagues.
So they don't have any empathy for us at all.

I feel as though the system is tyrannical, and I hate being under its thumb, especially when I do not make mistakes with my medications and they do.

Now, on the other hand, if you want to get in to see a specialist for your companion animal, that only takes a week or two, often less.
Costs a lot, but usually I get far better and more sympathetic service from veterinarian specialists than from human doctors.

 

[sunkacola]

VickyTheCat, that sounds just like the kind of experience that I have all the time.

What the heck is up with that?
Are there no competent people any more in the medical field?

May I have permission to scream, please?
Aaaarrggghh!
Thank you.

 

[andreap]

It is the same here in Sweden. I have a anticonvulsant and muscle relaxer , calm down pill and in the hospital I was given it 3x´s a day. When I got my prescription filled it said 2x´s a day and it is available for refill every 14 days. " x´s 14 is 28; the prescription is for 25. I don´t make it either way, or just barely. I asked the pharmacists about it and she said, they only come in bottles of 25 or 50. Hello? Can´t they just fill it as the doctor says? I am grateful for socialized medicine and the low costs, but this is just stupid.