Pain meds and the Dentist

I have a question that I hope someone can help me with.  I have to get dental work done.  I am in pain from some tooth problems.  My question is this.  How do I deal with my dental pain.  I am in pain management and my PM doc prescibes me my pain meds.  I know that a PM patient is only supposed to get pain medicine from his PM doc.  What happens when I am in bad pain from dental work?  Do I just use the meds my PM doc prescribes me for my back?  If so, wont I run out of my meds because I will be using them for terrible dental pain?  Also I am on oxycontin 3 times a day and not just any medicine will help me for tooth pain because my body is used to the meds I am on (my tolerance is high).  I just dont know how this works.  Do I need to call my PM doc and tell him I am having dental work so I need to use the meds he gives me for tooth pain as he (my PM) doc is the only doc that can prescribe any pain meds to me?  I am in a bit of a pickle and really dont know how to approach it.  Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

THanks and wish me luck.

Shaw,

Whenever I have had to have dental work done and needed pain meds, all I had to do was call my PM and let him know what the dentist was prescribing and for how long. He would just okay it and make a note of it in my chart....and that was the end of it.

Call your PM's office and ask them how they want you to handle it. Do they want your dentist to call, or have you call before you fill the script or do they want you to bring it in to show them? Each office usually has it's own protocals, but normally, it's just notifying them of the script, who gave it and why....

sandi

I had to have my wisdom teeth removed a few years ago, but they had to cut into my gums to get them out, so it was considered surgery, and it hurt like crazy after the numbing stuff wore off. They gave me pain meds that of course didnt work, probably partially due to my high tolerence but we tried a few diffrent with diffrent doses and none of them worked. But after talking to my pain doctor and oral surgeaon we decided that I would come in every few days to the oral surgeon to get this numbing goo put into the holes where my teeth where pulled from and it worked. But I found that ibprofen worked wonderfully for teeth/oral pain, I dont know why it worked way better then the narcotics, but it just does, probably due the the ainti-inflammatory part of the ibprofen did something to the swelling there and released the pain. And I cant do NSAIDs often cause they upset my stomach, but just for a few days I'm ok, and just with ibprofen cause the other NSAIDs makes my stomach hurt with just one dose. But if I where you, I would have some NSAIDs on hand just in case, and I would give them a try if you find that narcotics are not working, cause they worked for me. And the goo, I dont know what the name of it was, it was some pink stuff that tasted really nasty but worked wonderfully. But I swear by the ibprofen for any teeth pain now, I dont even mess with te narcotics anymore for teeth pain, cause they dnt do anything for that kind of pain on me, and I just happened to be tlaking about this on another pain forum, and we all agreed that NSAIDs for teeth work was the best choice. So thats just my experience, I hope it helps some.

-hellokitty

Wow! I was just thinking about this before I went to bed lastnight. I have to have three root canals and 2 extractions done sometime in the near future. I was also wondering about the PM contract. I thank everyone for the advice more then one of us on here needed the information....

Laurie

Shaw,
I'm bumping this up so you can reread some of the advice already given.

Good luck tomorrow!

PaLady