Panicking!!! Help please!!!!

SJH -

I will tell you I live near Casa Grande - I went to a couple doctors up in phoenix who really didn't seem to care that I was in pain. The doctor I'm seeing currently is with the Integrative Pain Center of Arizona (IPCA) if you look them up they have a website.

I do believe they require a referral from another doctor. Also - depending on when your last MRI was done they may require a new one, along with other information as far as what treatments you have had done and what-not.

As far as him giving you 10mg percocets 8-10 a day, I would seriously ask for a copy of the pain contract that you signed. Most state that if for any reason they decided to stop you on the pain medication they must ween you off responsibly so as to avoid withdrawals.

Any doctor that tells you it's just a small herniation, and that you are too young is a ass. (Forgive the language please). I woke up one morning in 2000 in pain worse that I had ever felt - after playing around with the military required treatment plan we found out I had ruptured two discs - at 20 years old. Anyone who tells you your too young is an idiot. By his opinion the fact that I'm now 28 have two ruptured discs, L4-L5-S1, a large disc bulge at L3-L4 and several small herniations up and down my spine, as well as degenerative disc disease, well, by that docs idea of "being too young" those must all just be figments of the MRI's imagination.

As far as people reading the post and not responding - it could very well be that they had nothing to say.

Wel, it may not be so far, I live in Queen Creek, about 10 mins from Coolidge so Tucson is about... 45 mins away? So I will check them out definitely...

I may be being too sensitive. I am upset about what happened, and I like this Doc but he made me feel kind of like a druggie, because I started to smoke pot for a couple of months...My husband smokes, and I never really cared, but he insisted that it would help the pain, that "cancer patients smoke it, and they hurt a hell of a lot worse than you do" but to be honest, it really didn't. It made me eat and that was it. So now I'm fat and in pain, a double whammy...

Yeah that one pain doc WAS a jerk. I wrote him and the executive director of his clinic a nasty-gram, plus sent a grievance to my insurance co. asking that they not process their claim (I am a biller, and I like to hit them where it hurts.... in the pocket)

Plus I am increasingly hurting rigth now, I am at work, and I cannot concentrate, which is why I am on here.... sitting at this desk just makes it worse. So please forgive me if i get snappy until I get some more pain meds, withdrawal and pain to to begin with is the worst hell I can imagine....

SJH - I totally understand about the pain getting worse by sitting at the desk - my husband finds my back and forth to and from the computer habit annoyingly funny.

Just remeber as sjkly said - don't take anything not prescribed to you - it will just cause problems down the road. I can also tell you that IPCA does do random drug testing - and everyone has a very finicky drug test done prior to them even giving you a prescription. When I got the bill I think they must have tested for everything under the sun - it was about a 1500 dollar drug test prior to my insurance paying on it.

SJH,
I posted some responses to you on another thread, before I'd read this one. First let me say sometimes I (and probably others) don't respond because we may just not have the energy. We're all pain patients, too, and a lot of people read and never respond. Please don't take it personally.

After reading your initial post on this thread, I can see more that you and your husband may both possibly have addiction issues. I know there are various views on marijuana, but it's still illegal unless you're in a state like California and get it medically approved. That means it leaves you open to difficulties when seeking pain management. You probably know this, but your records from your pain doc will likely be required by any new pain doc, and the marijuana use is documented not only verbally but by test results. That may make it very difficult for you to get narcotics. Ultram isn't a narcotic, and it is used for pain. It may be of some help with withdrawal.

If you can't find pain management soon, you may need to at least have an evaluation by an addictions professional that clears you - if someone is willing to do that. Your husband's use may make that difficult. Again, it's illegal regardless of how anyone feels about it. And it didn't even help your pain.

I don't know if you can try talking with your doc again. It also seems like you were taking a high number of percocet. I wonder why you weren't put on a longer acting medication like oxycontin. Do you have any other addiction history - yours or in your biological family?

It's going to be complicated from here on out, so I think you need to begin deciding what you're willing to do, and whether you can find a pain management doc who will take a risk with you.

Hope this doesn't sound too harsh; it's not meant to be.

PaLady

Hi,

I can't help with a doctor in Tuscon, but as far as the withdrawal goes, you are going to have a rough few days I think. 8-10 percocet a day is a little high as far as short acting meds go. Is that how many were prescribed a day for you?

How long have you been taking them that way?

I would get some immodium for the diarrehea that you will probably have, some gatorade type drink, some tylenol pm to help with the lack of sleeping and other than that, you are going to have to ride it out. The good news is that you will be mostly over the rough part in 3-5 days.

You won't die from it, but it is not pleasant to have to go through.

If you tested positive initially, why did the doctor continue to prescribe to you? I am a bit unclear about a timeline for this. Did you continue to smoke marijuana while seeing the PM? Is that why he cut you off?

I know that many PM's now have taken a stance that they will not taper a person, once they are cut off since withdrawal is not life threatening in most circumstances.

Ultram and Ultracet are not narcotics but have been known to cause withdrawal once they are stopped since they work very much like opiate pain meds . However, I would not take them since you are trying to get into a new PM.

As far as the PM you saw today, he may have a different view of pain meds, many have gone into doing injections rather than pain meds. Also , many more PM's are not prescribing pain meds until you are an established patient, which means that you have been seen there more than once.

I wish you luck in finding a new doctor, but my best advice would be not to take anything not prescribed for you at this point and to stay away from the marijuana.

Sandi M

Yeah I smoked it for a couple of months before I started pain management, then I had my 1st appt, they asked if I did any drugs, I told them yes I smoke pot, they had me sign the contratc, it says cannot that, so I stopped, continued for 2/3 months, now he says no I have to have a clean UA? OK, then you want me to take one now? I guess, if you want... uh ok..... so I gave them a CLEAN one on monday, as it has been for the last what? Month or two? I'm not a street junkie or crack head, I started to smoke pot for 2 months out of my 27 years one time at night to help my sleep through the pain.... what the hell? I don't understand why he's doing this all of a sudden. I ahve my PCP working on getting me a referral to a new PM doc....

no no no I STOPPED smoking it THAT DAY and haven't touched it since!

I'd like to make a fw point if I may.
1) As PALady said, whatever your personnal opinion might be, cannabis is illegal in the US (not even allowed anymore for medical use I believe, Federal Law, not 100% sure though about this though, önly 99%); to put it bluntly, there is no reason to keep going on about it as it will only give you additional stress and you can miss that right now I think. If you need to vent, feel free of course to rant.
2) Decades of research have proven cannabis is very inefficient as pain medication; here in Europe, most pain specialists no longer prescribe it. It does cause the munchies (like some other pain meds do as well) and putting on additional weight isn't going to be good for the spine either.
3) 8-10 x 10mg is a lot indeed. You can't keep this up for years anyway, unless you want your kidneys to throw in the towel.
4) On the other hand, after only 6 month on percocet, withdrawal won't be so bad (I've been through withdrawal several times, trust me on this one).
5) Fear and panic can cause symptoms far worse than the actual problem. Try to remain calm and try not to imagine things. I know when you go into withdrawal the first time, you think every strange/abnormal feeling is a withdrawal symptom. Usually it is not. In an other situation such minor nuisances would simply have been ignored. I don't say you won't have withdrawal effects but I won't be that bad.
6) Now that you are almost clean (not by your own choice unfortunately), I would look at this as an opportunity. It is obvious your back pain won't go away overnight so we'll have to think long term here. Pain meds are not the solution (though they might be a temporary relief), I should try to get the problem solved. You're young, you got some 50 years to go and you can't do that on pain meds alone (unless you want to end up as a drooling idiot in a wheelchair at 37).
7) As for a possible addiction issue, I can't advice on that.

I have asked to have surgery and have it done with so I won't have to go through this but they say it won't do any good. It will fix the herniation, but not the degenerative disk disease, so I can TRY shots but it's not a guarantee, they pretty much told me that I am going to be in pain for the rest of my life. So what else am I going to do? I just followed what the dr said and now I am in this situation. And yes Gramps the pain is enough to stick a gun in my mouth.... but like I said, who cares. No one else does, there fore neither do I. May as well get used to it...

SJH,
I just want to make clear I didn't say you were an addict. I say you and your husband MAY be based on the marijuana use. But whether you meet the criteria for addiction in a diagnostic sense needs to be determined by someone evaluate more details of your medical history. What is true, by your own admission, is that you have used an addictive, illegal subtance, and regardless of how one veiw marijuana unless you were doing it under one of the legally approved programs (like Gramps mentioned) you were breaking the law and that's enough to red flag you for any doctor. And you said in one of your earlier posts that you go through withdrawal every couple of weeks because you run out of pain meds. None of that means you don't have pain, but your choices are making it more difficult for you to get it adequately treated. And it's difficult enough for those of us who've never used an illegal substance or abused our pain meds.

As far as surgery goes, Gramps and myself are just two examples of failed back surgeries. Now that doesn't mean surgery won't help some people, but it's not a cure all and may even make things worse. Most of us went into surgery hoping for just what you'd be hoping for - relief and a cure. I wish that was possible for you, for me, and for everyone else here. If the docs are telling you surgery won't do any good, they may be helping you avoid a mistake that could make your pain even worse, but I don't know that. Just commenting because a lot of docs will lead you to a surgeon's door after they've tried everything else. I wish you could find some relief or a cure, but you may have to accept what the rest of us have - managing pain rather than curing it. And I'm still accepting it myself. It's a process that goes on (for me, at least) every day. And I don't like it one bit, but it's reality. So now I've got to decide what to do with it.

Please don't think I or others here who may be sounding harsh don't care. I wouldn't bother to respond if I didn't care. I'm just trying to help you see some of your choices are going to make getting adequate pain reiief even more difficult, and being angry at your pm doc for not helping you - when he actually did prescribe even though you presented initially with having used marijuana - isn't going to help you.

Believe it or not, I do care.

PaLady

For everyone reading this thread - can we PLEASE drop the addict word - it was used in another thread and that thread ended up not being useful to anyone.

SJH - There has been quite a lot being said to you - some of it helpful - some of it not. One thing that you have going against you is that fact that they did a tox screen and illegal drugs showed up. I strongly recommend that even though it might help short term that you do NOT touch the stuff again. You want to show to any doctor that is willing to listen that you complied with your pain contract the moment you signed it. THAT is important.

Did the doctor allow you to take another UA? If so I hope that he realizes you took that pain contract seriously, if he refused, I would consider calling up a legal aid and seeing what can be done. This doctor is definitely doing some fishy business... he allowed you to continue getting meds for months, then all the sudden pulls out the UA results and halts your medication without giving you adequate help in weening off of them. It sounds to me like he may very well be under investigation, or is worried he might be soon. Also - to me if he was going to use the pot as a reason to not give you medication he should have avoided the prescription all together once you told him you were using it on the first visit.

SJH - in one of the posts somewhere in here you made a passing comment that you never asked for an early refill and if your husband used more than you suffered - were you saying that your husband was taking your pain medication? If so - I think that you need to sit down and have an honest discussion with him regarding the fact that he is breaking the law in doing so - and you are breaking the law by not turning him in for it. Also - let him know that if he uses any illegal substances around you - it's your future he's ruining, not just his own.

Also - if you were rear ended and that is what caused the injury you might very well have a case there if you have not already signed any contracts of any type with the insurance companies - seeing a lawyer about that might help as well.

I will tell you that degenerative disc disease is not fun, or easy. If you are given pain medication in the future you may want to do your darnedest to go slowly up in dosages and amounts. I believe you had said you were injured for a relatively short period of time (I know pain wise it seems like forever), however taking so many pain medications in a day, and continuing on that path into the future will hurt your liver, and your life.

There are many who may disagree with what I'm about to say, but I want to give you an idea of what you get to look forward to... I injured my back in 2000. I didn't want surgery, an attempted to live my life around my back pain. It sucked, a lot. In 2003 I had a lumbar fusion at my L4-L5-S1. I had great relief for 6 months (about) then the pain started slowly creeping back to the point where now it is worse than it was pre-surgery. The scar tissue (or at least thats what they are guessing) is the cause. I also have DDD and in the past six months I've found out that I have a large bulge or rupture (due to the metal causing the CT to scatter they can't be sure which) at the L3-L4 level, along with several small bulges throughout my spine. For the rest of your life you are going to be in pain. I've been honestly, and frankly informed by my current pain doctor that I am NEVER going to be pain free. His goal is to get me down to a daily acceptable pain level. Meaning I can function moderately. I've also been informed that even being extremely careful I can expect for my back to get worse over time. I am 28 years old - and have suffered this back pain for 8 years now. The pain showed up less than a week after I was married. I know what it feels like to have your life ripped away from you young. It sucks, and there are days where you wonder if being dead would be better on everyone involved - however I know that every day I fight the pain is another day I've beat it. I also know it would destroy my husband. I've had some rough moments and I've scared the crap out of him. One night after a week of really bad pain I asked him to go get me a knife to cut off my legs so they wouldn't hurt anymore (I don't remember it but he told me about it the next day). He said I sounded like it all made sense to me. The pain is going to suck - and your going to have darn crappy doctors (I've had my fair share). The most important thing you can do is to be honest with them. Some doctors are going to tell you your nuts, that the pain is in your head, others are going to want to help you, but are going to be too afraid to do so because of (as Gramps called it) their opiodphobia. Just hang in there, because fighting it, and the doctors when necessary IS worth it. As far as surgery - if the doctors are saying it wont help, I'd listen to them. Most would find it more beneficial to cut you open and pad their pockets than to tel you no - if they are saying no then it's not going to help. Just pray that in time they'll be able to work some of sciences magic on our spines like they can on everything from a guys thing (viagra), to a heart, to lungs, to transplanting faces now. :)

I hope some of this makes sense - I can't make heads or tails of any of it right now.

Tammy

I'd say, try some non-narcotic pain control methods or natural herbs while you try and get a new Pm doc.
Anti-depressants, anti-convulsants and some non-narcotic anti-anxieties like Hydroxozine can either help block pain or help in relaxing the body even if just a little.
I know everyone may say, well they wont work or I've tried them all. But if you cant get narcotic pain meds right now trying anyting and everything else you can is worth a shot.
There are some natural herbs although I dont know many off the top of my head except for Willow Bark which woks similiar to asprin although is easier on your stomach. They do sell it in many health food stores but like alot of things can be toxic in high doses. If you were willing to try marjuana than I'm sure your open to natural herbs that are legal to use.

As for using some legal method against this PM that terminated treatment, he is well within his rights. Especially because you did use marijuana in the beginning. Any Dr can terminate opioid treatment whenever they like. It may go against human treatment or rights a person has to not live in pain. It may not be "ethical" but leagally it's okay.
It doesnt always seem fair but it's there pergative unfortunitly. In my honest opinion(which of course ia a dime a dozen) any legal action is going to cause more problems. A judge or the other side(plaintiff??) is going to take one look at a failed UA with marijuana and have the whole case they need against you. Even if the Dr began to treat you. They will come up with viable reasone. Of course some will argue that fighting anything you see as an injustice is the right thing to do, and you may chose that route. But something like this may cause you to have a harder time getting treated in the long run.
If you sign a pain contact you have even fewer rights. Usually there is a statement in a pain cintract saying that the Dr can terminate treatment at any tine for any reason they feel nessesary.
The normal Patient Dr relationship that usually exists is not the same between a Pain Dr and there patient. We have less rights. That is something they dont unfortunitly tell us. It's like a little game we all have to play and dont always know the rules to unless we unknowing break one. Even if we think there not studying our every move, they are. We become suspect for everything. I think most of us live in fear that out medication support can be pulled at anytime even if we follow every rule tothe "T" and dont ever abuse our medication.
When you see a PM it's taking the good with the bad. Unfortunitly the bad being stuck in pain with no help.

When reading your posts, my first thought was that your urine must have shown THC or you must have shown some sort of sign that your Dr took as red flag behavior. There is a video I watched where a past PM Dr who has retired rambled off about 10 or 15 "red flag" signs that may not even mean anything, but to certain Dr's they do. There types of things that any one of us can do at any time.

Your records will unfortunitly follow you as it's not possible to get something removed that already written(as I've learned from a past post and our very knowlageable PAlady) so the best thing to do is get a copy of your records so you know exactly what has been said. That way you know what questions a new Dr may have ahead of time.

I think you've gotten enough feedback about using illicit drugs so wont add my opinion either way. Just that if you are able to get a new PM, ask for a copy of the pain contract so that you can plaster it up on the fridge or something.
I hope you can find something to help you even if it's something that's not your first choice.

Freya