First Pain Clinic Visit and Wedding - What a week!

Hi Guys

What a week!

First pain clinic appt on Tues....Did not seem to go very well. Saw a Psych, a physio and this 'pain specialist' who was older than the hills. I saw him for 10 minutes and he was sposed to spend an hour with me. after stating that I was now terrified of needles near my spine and wanted to try some other types of NSAIDS to try to drop off the narcs, he suggested spinal blocks and wanted me to stay on Wed for them to which I denied as I was getting married on Sat. after that he gave me the impression that I was wasting his time. they wanted me to come back for the block after my honeymoon and wanted to put me on Ketamine and clonidine patches.

I asked in general terms how long does the fusing process take?

'We dont know'

Whats the outlook - will other joints fuse as well??

'In your case were not sure'

Just generally?

'We really dont know"

They suggested I goto the chemist and get some Nurofen Gel. I asked what benefits it had over arnica cream, deep heat, Emu Oil and all the other topical remedies I have tried

"We really dont know'

Tese guys are the leading pain specialists in Australia? Ha!

I was so upset and dissapointed...They wanted to jump straight into spinal blocks without trying other less invasive treatments and couldnt even explaine the block process("I think we have a brochure arounde here somewhere"....Which they never gave me) and this time I went with my gut feeling as opposed to ignoring it as i did when i got the CT guide cortisone injections. I saw my dr a day before the wedding and he said that even though the visit was a dissapointment It will now allow us to go in new directions and try different types of drugs without hassles from government agencies etc (after i get back from honey moon of course.) He made me feel a whole lot better about the situation and so we move on to the wedding.

Thanks to my dr I was well supplied with enough pain killers to make the wedding a mostly pain free event! All went well though I am very stiff today though, but happy as I am now married to my sweetheart and can now go in new directions with my Doctor leading the charge in the war that has become my life battle against the evil armies of the fusion (lol)

I Have enough Oxy and morphine to chomp on the flight over and load up before I get off the plane in Thailand as sitting is a real painful process for me (Not allowed to bring in Morph or Oxy at all for personal consumption) but going straight to the hospital at Phuket to get redispensed as soon as we arrive with letter form Doc. I have a window of about 24 hours before i start withdrawing so I hope i can get dispensed quickly. Will give an update once back form Thailand in 10 days or so take care!

Sorry you had to go through all that with the pain clinic but glad your wedding went well.
Jo