Advice for Switching to Another Dr.

I haven't posted on this site for a little while now. For those of you that may not remember I will include a short (as short as I can make it!) summary below:

Oct. '07 - Injured my back by catching a falling car battery (ouch!). Visit to ER, MRI and X-Ray; no injury able to be determined.
Oct. '07 - Ended up back in the ER a second time for same back pain. Told to find a physician to treat me.
Oct. '07 - First saw my previous Dr. for back pain. Prescribed Oxycontin and Norco for BT.
Oct. '07 thru Nov. '08 - Back pain persisted over the entire period of time. Oxycontin was upped from 10 to 20 to 40mg.
Nov. '08 - Referred to pain clinic for treatment. Given shots on both sides of my spine (Cortisone? Not sure.) w/no effect. Second injection was into my spine (epidural injection) and really spun me out as far as level of pain went.
Nov. '08 - After epidural, saw my normal Dr. 4 times telling him I was in terrible amounts of pain and needed to take more medication than normal. He never said anything about me taking more medication (maybe he just wasn't listening to me, I am not sure). I was pretty naive back then...
Dec. '08 - Ran out of my medication early and was asked to "leave the practice" and given one month of Oxycontin and no breakthrough medication.
Jan. '09 - Went to the ER because I was out of medication and was not able to be seen by another Dr. yet (almost all of them were 2 to 3 months out before seeing new patients). I was given a list of Dr.s that were accepting new patients and that accepted my insurance.
Jan. '09 - Was able to find new Dr. He prescribed a Fentanyl patch and no breakthrough medication.
Jan. '09 thru Present - Fentanyl patch was upped from 50 to 75 to 100mcg.

I Found that generics (Fentanyl) leave me w/no pain control over the last 24 hours of the 72 hours the medication is supposed to be effective. Dr. prescribed DAW (name brand) patch and they worked a little better on the third day. These cost me over $800 a month and I simply could not afford it after a couple of months. I told the Dr. that I could not go with the name brand patch any longer and I asked him what we could do and he would change the subject. He spent over 20 minutes talking to me about my cholesterol levels but when he went to leave w/out telling me what I needed to do about the patches, he just turned and left the room. He is being evasive and outright running out the door when I ask him questions. I learned my lesson before and will not do anything that my Dr. has not put in writing, otherwise they either may not be paying attention to me or simply not even remember talking to me about it (I have to tell this guy my life story every time I see him because he cannot seem to remember anything about my condition, etc.). There are a lot of other problems w/this guy from his secretary not making appointments for referrals that they said they would to telling me to cut patches in half (can be lethal) to not returning calls, etc. and etc.

Due to all these problems, unbearable pain in my back that is unrelenting, a Dr. that won't even acknowledge I have asked questions, having no control of my pain and having quite bad WD almost half the time due to the patches ineffectiveness, etc. I need to find someone else that will actually help me. I have been feeling pretty hopeless lately. I have not been able to work anywhere near what I used to and all my bills are overdue. Elect. was almost cut off (they came out and gave me a 24 hour notice before I was able to get them to accept a partial payment), gas people need $800, my wife's car was repossessed last week and on and on.

I have been thinking more and more about ways to end this. I had to delete a lot of things I just wrote here but I will say this; I have woke up almost every morning thinking that if I only was alone... If I didn't have a daughter, son, wife and mother who would be crushed by me leaving... If it were not for these people, I wouldn't have bothered w/it this long. I know a lot of you on here have problems equal to or greater than my own and I don't want people to dwell on these thoughts. I do want to convey just how bad this has become for me. I am scared to death that I will end up loosing my resolve and will become weaker than I am. I do not want that and it scares me that I have become this way.

I do not want to tell my Dr. these things. I do not think he will understand or even care. On top of that I cannot stand his nurse/wife. When the topic came up that I could not afford the name brand patches this month, she repeatedly said (loud enough for everyone in the waiting room to hear) that "well, I guess you can either take the generic or try and tough it out but you'll probably end up in the hospital because of the withdrawal". I find this very unprofessional and I do not want to think of what she would do/say if I had to go in and tell them that I have been fighting thoughts of taking my life.

I believe I should find a new Dr. I don't want to give the impression that I am Dr. shopping (I have educated myself very well since my initial problems w/my first Dr.) and I would not hold back information from any other Dr. that I would see. I do find myself wondering what to do. How should I go about finding another Dr.? Should I tell my current Dr. that I want to find someone else? Wouldn't I need him to refer me to someone else? If I do ask him, will he cut off the only medication that I do have? I do not want to think of what I would do if something like that were to happen. I know I can continue on for yet a while if I am on my current medication while looking for someone else but if he gets angry and tells me to "leave this practice" because I want to go elsewhere, what would I do then? Can they lock me up for a period of time if I talk about how I am really feeling w/this whole situation? Man, I cannot believe how bad this has become. I have to do something, anything. I have been trying not to break down just typing this here... Thanks for the time and I apologize for the crazy long length of this post.


Skrape

Skrape,

You have anawful lot of thoughts racing through your mind...and along with CP, that is a major storm brewing.  You sound like you need help, not only with money troubles, but with Depression as well.  Thoughts of suicide are scary, not only to your family but to you also.  "If only" "If only"  those words creep into all of our minds here...We have wishes of not being in pain, of making it easier on those around us...But taking your life will create more problems for the ones we leave behind.

Your Dr. is a JackASS!!  And I think you should definitley look for a more reputable one in your area.  He sounds like he is only worried about money and not YOU...  Some Dr.'s are like that and we should be able to weed them out.  But sometimes we have to go through several before we find one that we can put our trust and our lives in their hands...without worrying.

Sometimes you have to take that first step and tell that Dr. where to go....No, don't do that...but find another Dr. to go to, We deserve to be Pain free (almost at least).

Good luck,

Me.