Re: quitting
- From: "Happy cHunk" <birdie998@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 29 Mar 2007 18:29:37 -0700
On Mar 29, 12:05 pm, carlsbad...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Mar 29, 7:41 am, spooner <s...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
For those of you living with long term non terminalchronicpainwho
are taking Oxycontin or MS contin etc.. and now you wish to quit for
your own personal reasons but you don't know how to stop because of the
grip these pills has, I have a idea. What about a Patch created to help
with the withdrawal just like the nicotine patch. would this be a viable?
I feel that it is certainly worth taking a look, at before I resist
the idea. I am sorta in the situation which you mentioned...wanting
to quit for personal reasons. If one is able to tolerate thepain,
which would be a result of stopping the meds. then it most certainly
would be a viable option. In my case, I feel that mypainis less
than when I initially started taking the strong opiods and therefore,
would like to stop taking the meds. but like you said, I don't want
the withdrawl and really don't want to start on bupe., as eventually,
I would have to get off of it.
Catch 22, I guess....we all have different degrees ofpainand I feel
that my life would be better without the meds.
thanks for the thought.
Aloha All!
Hey?! Here's an idea...
Follow protocol and mention what you just did in the original letter
and in 'spooners' post! Doctor are obligated by LAW to do whatever
they can to keep you as comfy as possible, telling you what to do,
prescribe whatever is necessary, and so on if and when that MIRACLE
happens that you may have been praying for happens where you begin to
notice you are healing enough again so your "chronic" pain wasn't so
chronic as the two of you thought it might be and is slowly but surely
going from it's usual level 7, with higher levels of breakthrough
pain, to a much lower level of consistent pain and virtually NO
breakthrough pain!
I tell you guys that IF my pain ever did what you are describing, I'd
be on the phone to my pain management (or whoever is watching my pain)
doctor so fast it would make my family and friends heads spin! I'd
fall to my knee's in tears and give thanks to whoever or whatever
caused that to happen!
Why? I've NEVER done anything that possibly would or wouldn't affect
my pain ever since I finally FOUND a doctor willing to care for it
WITH ME! and I sure as heck don't want to start then! Not when it
would probably be one of the most important times to even HAVE a good
enough doctor in the first place!
Yes, I have had exceptional ( I hesitate to use the word 'luck') when
it comes to my doctor taking care of my pain exactly the way I was
looking for.When my pain management doctor (who, in reality, is a
Oncologist. Doctors NEVER wear the title of "Pain Management, that's
one reason they are so hard to find!) that has been doing a better
'job' than I EVER could have hoped for OR thought was possible, up and
RETIRED on me last year, all my fears of how I felt for over a year
before I "found" him came rushing back at me! I was absolutely
terrified as he was talking to me for the last time at "our" last
appointment because of that AND because most of the time had already
passed and I knew the END of that appointment was near, and yet, he
didn't even mention the name of the doctor that was going to replace
him FOR ME!
Then he started to explain that even though he personally asked every
one of his colleagues to take me as their pain management patient, not
a single one offered to accept me for one lame (HIS WORD!) excuse
after another. Like I said, because he is obligated BY LAW, to either
continue with the opiod meds that we discovered were the ONLY thing
that even 'dented' my pain, or have one HELL OF A GOOD REASON to begin
tapering me off of them while I was no better now then I was when I
first met him (other than the lifesaving lowering of my Intractable/
Chronic Pain), or completely change his retirement plans and stay in
Hawaii until this "issue" was resolved. Had he simply just given up
and left for the mainland as planned without so much as a reference to
another doctor that would care for me and my pain, All I'd have to do
is make ONE phone call and he'd be lucky if he even made it TO the
mainland before being arrested and charged with "PATIENT ABANDONMENT".
YES! It's a very REAL crime and one that a retiring doctor wouldn't
wish on his worst enemy.
For a few minutes, I didn't know who to feel sorry for more! LOL! Then
he finally broke the "stunned silence" by telling me that he had to
use the "extra Ace up his sleeve" and ended up calling and asking his
BEST FRIEND, who just happened to be MY Psychiatrist, to write my
monthly "maintenance meds" (that we worked very closely together for
FIVE years and actually found 'magic bullet'). Can you believe that?
Every single one of his colleagues wouldn't do it because somewhere,
somehow the DEA put the 'fear of the wrath of God' in them and they
are actually afraid to write Schedule 2 meds for a patient unless they
have cancer pain!!! He said (my old doc) that they all looked at my
chart/records and none saw a single 'red flag', however, they simply
didn't have enough of the experience dealing with patients in
moderately severe to severe pain like HE HAS. Imagine the poor souls
my ex pain management doctor had to see and try to comfort by being a
CANCER DOCTER???!!!!!?? I know, I know...It's a lousey job, but
SOMEBODY HAS TO DO IT, right?
Now get this: for at LEAST three months after my last appointment with
my pain doc, I'm checking all points of the island for a doctor to
take me on...none would. The closest I came was a family practice
doctor who had already taken on a LOT of MY ex docs patients who would
"consider" it if i absolutely, positively raninto a "brick wall" and
had no where else to go. In other words, They were trying to tell
me",PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, find another doctor, because we already
have so many we feel we aren't really giving them the attention they
deserve."
Fine. I was sooo burned out by then from dealing with all the
rejections, I just closed my file of notes and since I had my shrink
writing my pain meds, and my regular doctor (who, by the way, had
already turned me down since I'd only just been seeing him for a
little over a year at the time) taking care of my blood pressure,
cholesterol and other misc. stuff (like testosterone
injections...etc!) I took a "many months break!!! After a YEAR, I
mention to my shrink how much I missed seeing him for psychiatry since
he's been so busy writing my meds instead. So I pulled out and dusted
off "the folder". I called the only one that gave me any hope and they
still had the same attitude except it was a little more on the "no"
side now.
30 minutes later, my phone rings and it's thae family practice docs
nurse! She tells me she pulled my file and looked through it to see if
she could find any reason doctors weren't aking me on as a patient.
Especially since all the "real hard" work was done. She told me thew
same as my ex doc! She couldn't find a single RED FLAG and that my doc
had kept impeccable notes! then she told me she talked to my regular
doctor (he's gotten to know me much, much more now and it's been
another year!) about me and said he'd be happy to be my pain
management doctor, and that he'd tell me on Friday (March23rd, LAST
FRIDAY!) the good news.
I'm telling you all, always be honest and upfroint with your pain
management docs. What if you attempt to "taper off on your own" and
you do fairly well for a few months and then your doctor finds out
you've been tapering off, didn't tell him/her, and what have you been
doing with all the EXTRA MEDS??? THAT just might make your doctor
angry. they don't like to be "kept in the dark? about such matters.
Besides, what have you goit to lose? You should tell the doc, follow
the plan s/he gives you and if it doesn't work and you discover you
are in more pain than you remembered for one reason or another, then
at LEAST you still have a pain management doctor who KNOWS you and you
can feel good about doing what you're doing because you've been
totally truthful with him/her.
Pleae. Play by the rules or it MAY make all of us CPer's look like
junkies! We get too much of that already! Don't you think?
OK, sorry for the bit of a 'rant'. really. I apologize.
Aloha and good luck!
Hawaiian Wayne/Happy cHunk
.
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