Hi Madison,
Welcome to the CP board of HW! If you're in pain, this is the best place to come! Everyone here is so helpful & supportive. You won't find a better place where people UNDERSTAND what you are going though, and I'm sure you know what a rarity that is! That said, I can completely relate to your age issues. I too am young, only 21, although I've only been in CP for two & a half years. My pain takes the form of severe eye pain, the result of a traumatic, and somewhat devastating injury. I'm fortunate that I currently have an excellent team of doctors working for me who believe me, despite our continued lack of answers, & are devoted to helping me, but it certainly wasn't always that way! I've certainly been to quite a few doc's who did not believe me, including one doc at a highly rated university hospital that refused to listen to anything that I had to say, barely examined me, talked about
me in a degrading fashion with his fellows, residents, and interns in front of both me & my mother, sent me for the wrong tests, and then all but accused me of being a drug seeker (this was well over a year before I even began taking any pain medication, despite my severe pain & in fact had refused it from my doc on several occasions because I wanted to make sure that I had tried EVERY other possible option before resorting to pain meds)! Then this guy never even wrote my doc, who referred me to him, a note, nor returned any phone calls from my doc, despite multiple attempts from my doc to get in contact with him (who by the way trained under this guy when he was a resident & were supposedly still friendly). Needless to say, I refuse to ever go back to that hospital! Even my mother couldn't believe how horribly this guy treated me (apparently she came very close to telling me to just get up & walk out in the middle of the appointment because she couldn't stand it!).
It is inevitable, that as a CP patient, you'll come across your fair share of docs and health professionals who don't believe you, or give you a hard time (especially, if you, like me, still don't have a concrete diagnosis or explanation for your pain), and unfortunately you will probably run into this even more so because of your age. Just don't give up! If your doctor does not believe you, or is not willing to give you the help that you need, switch to another doctor! There are plenty of docs out there & plenty of docs that will see you for more than your age, or your condition. Remember that as the patient, the docs work for you! May I ask the cause of your pain? Nineteen years, especially starting at such a young age, is a very long time to be in pain! Have you seen any specialists for you condition? What about
a pain management doctor? If you haven't seen a pain management doc yet, it would probably be worth getting a referral. They are very specialized and highly adept at treating pain using multiple techniques, not just medications (in fact, from what I've learned, some do not prescribe meds & only perform pain-relieving injections, nerve blocks, etc). Good luck to you! Keep posting!
Skeye
Post Edited (skeye) : 3/24/2009 9:23:01 PM (GMT-6)