Hey Painkiller,
Yeah, I've done the University of Virginia Medical Center thing too. This was one of the worst offenders of the "we just treat parts" attitude. They would not include treatment of my migraines in my pain management plan. For the first few visits, I was not given any kind of help at all for my pain issues. At one point, the doctor told me to go to Weight Watchers, lose some weight, and that should resolve my back pain problems!!! This, at a point where I could barely stand and walk across the room. This was totally ignoring all the physiology that was wrong in my back. I was also seeing a "pain psychologist", (their idea) who basically told me to "play along with the pain management specialist... lose 10lbs before your next appointment and they might take you seriously." UH...HELLO??!!! Where are the coping skills, the relaxation techniques, calming mechanisms, etc... that pain psychologists are supposed to help you with???
Boy, those were some amazing skills I was being taught, right?!! NOT!!! At least, the last couple of times I've gone there, I actually ran into an intern PM specialist with a brain. He examined me, and using some common sense, decided to do a procedure(steroid injections to my SI joints) that would actually give me some relatively immediate relief right then, instead of just doing a test procedure that would only last a few hours. I've seen this new DR twice now for the SI joint injections, which have really have given me some help for a few weeks. I just happened on this new DR, and thank God I did. Otherwise, I'd still be nowhere with the old jerk doing nothing concrete to improve my condition. I'm scheduled to go back again for another round of SI injections in about a month from now, and the DR will then see if pursuing the lumbar facet denervation will be beneficial. Finally, I'm just starting to get somewhere.
Leigh Ann 