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QUESTION:
I have had chronic lower back pain on and off now for about 20 years. I
have had MRI's which show clear damage on my lower spine which becomes
inflamed and interferes with my spinal chord. I refuse to have an
operation for this because of the fact thet I have been controlling the
pain bouts with medications. Percocet 7.7/325mg. This medication takes
care of all the pain and have maintained the same dosage for over a
year, until recently. My Doctor referred me to a pain clinic where the
doctor there precribed 60 Percocet per month. Down from the 90 I have
been recieving. He also makes it difficult to get an appointment with
sometimes a 2 hour wait which I can tell you is no fun with sciatic and
lower back pain on a fold up waiting room chair. I tried to explain
thatthe medication was mot enough and a follow up appointment was made
for 5 weeks later. I had 1 month of pain meds, not enough for 1 month
let alone 5 weeks. I went to my regular doctor today to ask for some
painkillers until my visit on the 24th with my pain doctor. he gave me
some Lortabs to tide me over but explained that my pain doctor should
be doing this for me. I told him I had an appointment on the 24th and
thet i was in no condition to sit in my pain doc's waiting room with a
painful back for 2 hours. Why should I have to suffer excruciating pain
and lost days at work when I have good medical insurance?
ANSWER:
If you know that your back is getting inflamed, why aren't you talking
over taking flams with yer pain management docs? They don't just dispense
narcotics, but are 'sposed to work with all yer docs to come up with and
implement a treatment plan custom made for you.
You will continue to have pain that will get worse and worse until you
get the inflammation calmed down. The chronic inflammation does damage.
Also, Percocets are far from ideal for nerve pain, which is what is
involved in sciatica.
So talk these concepts over with yer pain doc and really be prepared to
listen! When a doc is trying to treat someone who refuses proper treatment,
ya can't blame 'em if they give up trying to tell ya after trying really
hard to get thru to ya.
If you pain is bad enough for you to be eating an average of three
Percocet's a day, it isn't the right medication to be using to control
your pain. More then likely a long-term pain medication in
conjunction with something that works better on nerve pain would be
appropriate if you are in constant pain.
Additionally, if something in your back is truly becoming inflamed
then I would suspect that an anti-inflammatory would be more in order
then opiates which aren't going to do anything for the inflammation..
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