HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

No painkillers for me....Long Island doc recommendations?

Support Forums
>
Crohn's Disease
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 12/20/2007 2:57 AM (GMT 0)
Hi all, I haven't been on these forums for awhile.  My problem is my lack of a doctor who will give me pain treatment.  I've tried the pills my GI and my primary doctor have given me any they do not work.  The one thing that has worked is hydrocordone.  My GI doesnt beleive in this.  Fine.  I asked the forums for advice and a lot of you told me you also see pain management specialists.  I was also worried that maybe I was wrong for taking this medicine when in pain and a lot of you said its the only thing that works for you as well.  So I see a pain management specialist and they didn't want to give me any either.  They gave me a perscription for a daily pain med that I ended up not filling only because it cost around 90 bucks a month! 

It's so incredibly frustrating and I feel like doctors might be age-ist because I fit the statistic, a woman in her 20s, who would abuse the pill.  But I only take at most, a few a month.  I wish I could have a doc just prescribe me around 5 a month, something that I clearly could not abuse, but just a security.  Everytime I use a pill I worry is my pain worth it? I only have a limited amount left from an old perscription. . .

For the most part, my Crohn's is in check.  I take mercaptopurine.  Last year I was on Remicade as well for a few months but for the past few years its basically just been the 6-MP.  But every so often I have flare ups. 

When I'm at home I can deal with the pain, I can just lie in bed.  But if I'm out and about...that's another story.  I live on Long Island, so my boyfriend and I decided to go into the city on Monday and see the tree and all the Christmas displays.  Out of nowhere, I was in so much pain I couldn't even walk.  I couldn't even think I could walk a few blocks to go sit in a store somewhere.  I just sat down on a bench outside in the cold.  A few times I wanted to get up and just go somewhere but I was just in so much pain.  It didn't even seem like it was bathroom related pain.  My boyfriend walked and got me some water and luckily I always carry medicine with me and I had one hydrocordone.  Then we walked in doors, I tried using the bathroom, I sat around...20ish minutes later I felt much better.  Had I not had the painkiller, I would have been screwed.  The same thing happened when I was with his family visiting their relatives in Texas.  We were doing touristy stuff like visiting the Alamo and were at least 2 hours from where we were staying.  If I didn't have a painkiller, I would have had to inconvienance everyone I was with. 

I just don't understand why doctors are so reluctant.  I reallly feel that if I was a 65 year old woman, they wouldn't think twice.  After the city incident, I really want to find someone.  I don't know if it would be better if I had my mom and my stepdad go with me when I visit doctors to let them know I am a responsible person who takes them very very rarely?  At the same time I feel like okay, I'm not a child anymore. . .I'm 23 years old, I shouldn't have to take my mommy to the doctor to convince them to help me with my pain...

. . .I don't know what to do....I don't nessecarily want to switch GIs. . .it's hard enough finding a GI who's local and takes your insurance!  I don't know what the next step is.  I tried to follow the advice of other Crohnies and saw a pain management specialist and just like my primary doctor, made me feel like I was in the wrong. 

Anyone happen to be in the long island area and can recommend a doctor?

Posted 12/20/2007 9:49 AM (GMT 0)
Hi there,I am sorry that you are having to deal with the pain and I know were you are coming from as fare as your Doctor's not wanting to script pain meds.This is what some of my Doctor's including my GI told me about scripting pain meds,there has been so much heat about scripting narcotics because of people oding on them or in general abusing them and all so law suits and they are scared to script pain meds even when the person has a vialated reason to take them so there for they don't want the responsability.The is the reason the Pain Clincs has boomed because people are going to them because that is the only way that they can get the help they need.You say that the pain clinic you went to script you meds and it was $90.00 to get it filled,what was the name of the medicine that they script for you?All so there are a tone of people out there that doctor shope to get narcotics and buy sending you to a pain clinic you have to sign a contract that states that you will get all of your pain meds from them and you get a copy and so does a pharmacy and if you take a script that was giving to you but another doctor other than the pain clinic the pharmacy is suppose to report you to the pain clinc.I go to a pain clinc and they do pill count's and they all so do random drug test as well,when I first starteds goin to one I had to take a drug test but they have have been having a lot of problems with this and noiw they are sujected to call you at any time to come in and take the drug test and the reason for the change is because there are alot of people that are taking other meds both leage drug and unleagle drugs and they would stop useing the meds a couple of week's before time to do there drug test and come up negative on the reading but now you get no waning.If you come up posative one time you are kicked out and you want be let back in.So see you have to look at a lot of different angles.I hope that this helps some what and have a better understanding as to why a lot of doctors don't wat to script narcotics.
Posted 12/20/2007 5:07 PM (GMT 0)
Yeah, it's frustrating. I understand it's hard from the doc's point of view too because they don't want to get in trouble. But I guess I find it frustrating and annoying when I have an acquaintance who is an adict and gets more than 30 pills a month because of her "period" yet I just want to have a few for those few really bad flare ups and people just assume that I'm going to abuse. I don't want to doctor shop, it makes me feel like I am a bad person...?! My old primary used to perscribe them to me, and I used them very rarely, a month supply would last me over a year. Then my primary doctor, 2 partners went their separate ways and I'm stuck with the one who doesn't beleive in giving pain medicine. Then at the suggestion of people on the forums I went to a pain management specialist and they too kinda knocked me down.

I get where the pain management guy and my GI is coming from...they don't want to give me something to mask the pain, they want to give me something to correct the problem. I get it. But obviously it doesn't always work. And every once in a while, I get really bad pain that isn't helped by my daily meds. If I'm stuck somewhere like the other day walking around in the city, taking my daily meds isn't going to help. Taking some ibprofin or tylonel isn't going to help, nor the perscribed crap my GI has given me for pain that never works....

I'm just incredibly frustrated. I try to always keep a positive attitude and not let the Crohn's get me down, but when it interferes with my daily life and prohibits me from living, its just so frustrating that there's nothing to be done about it.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhasldjahs!
Posted 12/20/2007 6:00 PM (GMT 0)
I agree. I broke my shoulder awhile back and was given Darvocet and had the best BM's of my life. But my GI said he couldn't rx it for crohns because I would build a tolerance to it and it would no longer be effective at a safe dose. I wanted to ask for a script just for special occasions but didn't feel comfortable because he seemed against it. He even was against giving me nasuea meds and said he wanted to find the source of the naseua instead. Well he never did much to find it. Overall I really like my doc and I luckily don't have too much pain or nasuea. He rx'd me Hyosciamine PRN sublingual for pain. It is an anti-spasmodic used for IBS. I am sure that is what your doc had you try as well. Luckily for me it works but I can only take one per day without getting super tired from it.
Posted 12/21/2007 6:39 AM (GMT 0)
I don't remember what he gave me to try, I have it somewhere stuffed in a drawer...They're little green pills I think. And there's been a few other different ones he's given me in the past. I remember trying recently to take them since I realized I'm obviously not going to get any one to prescribe me the painkillers that actually help the pain...I was trying to keep an open and positive attitude but like I said, nothing worked...I was in so much pain and the pills were so tiny I was so tempted to pop a bunch more after an hour or 2 went by without any of the pain subsiding....
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply