Welcome to Hell ! That should be the sign over every freaking pain clinic. But pain is good for you. At least that sure seems to be the attitude of society. You deserve your pain, you are an addict so why should we care if you are in pain ? You probably brought this on yourself. These and many more attitudes are common responses to finding out someone is on pain medication. Then there are these beauties. Oh you don't really need that, you are just faking it, you can just ignore the pain, It;s just a matter of mind over matter. You must be weak willed. Pardon me while I get a baseball bat. I'm going to be very busy hitting these idiots real soon.
That is what you will hear from the public. Then we get to the myriad practioners of the medical profession. Let's take pharmacists. Walk into your local pharmacy with a pain script and watch the fun begin. Someplaces you get these nasty little looks like you are getting ready to pull out a gun and rob them. Some others will flat out lie to you telling you they are out and suggesting you go to another pharmacy meanwhile looking at you like you are the scum of the earth. ( Good luck, hit a couple and suddenly you are a drug seeker.) Still others will hit you with 20 questions. Why do you need this ? Are you sure you really want this ? What are you using it for ? You don't look like you need it. All that and many more. Then the best ones are the pharmacies that want some sort of solid proof. MRIs, CT scans, medical records and more. Yeah I travel around with my medical history in my trunk. Let me get you those. It should take a few days at least to put that all together. Meanwhile you are in pain. You just want relief. You are depressed and this BS isn't making it any better. Hey I will admit I am lucky. I had a few experiences like that but not many. Not like others I have talked to. I know one friend who had to go to 8 different pharmacies, traveling well over 100 miles to get her mother's pain meds filled. Her mom has cancer and is terminal. She is not in Hospice care but rather at home with her family and bed ridden. She can't just go into the pharmacy to get her medications filled.
I haven't even gotten into the actual Hell of Pain Management clinics which I have detailed in many other diaries. The humiliation and bullshit we put up with just to get access to medications that don't even relieve all of our pain is ridiculous. Welcome to our Hell ! I for one am tired of it. I know there are thousands if not millions more just like me. We live in Hell ! Pain controls our lives. We are humiliated by the medical profession that treats us as criminals in the making. We are forced time after time to "Prove oru Innocence" by pissing into a cup. We put up with random pill counts, snarky comments from non medical staff and the medical team pushes us to accept shots and other procedures that are not needed and will not alleviate our pain.
Follow me down below the orange snow doodle for more of life in Hell !
How many times a day am I tempted to strangle someone who pops off with some snarky little comment about being weak willed or it's just a little pain. If I was so weak willed you would be dead before you finished the sentence. If I was so weak willed I would be in jail for life but I am not and you better thank your lucky stars that I have such a strong will. How many of you people would like to step into my shoes for a week or even one day ? I bet you would be crying from the pain in minutes. Within an hour you would be begging for stronger drugs. by the end of the day you would be ready to just end it all. Yet you have the gall to talk about weak willed.
I admit before I had all this crap go wrong with my back I never gave a thought to chronic pain. Yeah I had been injured here and there but that pain is short lived. After time it goes away. This doesn't end. It gets a bit better with the help of my pain medications but it doesn't go away and better is subjective. Better to me means it hurts but I can think, I can get up and do my job. Better means the pain comes down from 7 or 8 to a nice level of 5. those are my "Good Days" bad days aare even more of a Hell. The pain hits 9 or 10 and with my medication comes down to 7. Still I drag my butt to work. I can't afford to miss too many days or else I lose my job and my insurance coverage. Then there is the sciatic pain. It doesn't stick around but it is just so much fun. Feels like a red hot knife is slicing up and down my leg. There is a couple of spots where the pain just sits. In my left knee and my left foot. Those two spots feel like a red hot poker has been jammed into them then it gets hit with a sledge hammer. This only lasts a minute or so. Just enough to cause me to cry out and groan from pain and my eyes to water. It can also center on the groin. Oh yeah that one is so much fun. Really love the sensation of being kicked in the nuts. Oh boy can we do it again ? Then there is the pain shooting down my right arm. Just about the same as my leg pain. That red hot knife slicing down the outside while a red hot poker sits at the base of my hand throbbing. I will admit I am sure glad that that pain is not all the time. I would be screaming if it was. As it is it stops whatever I am doing until it passes.
Why is it okay with society that we are not given strong enough medications to lower our pain more ? Why is there such a huge bias against us ? I sure don't want to be a zombie but I bet I could handle a stronger dose of my medications so I can have a better quality of life. Going down to a 2 or a 3 would be awesome but they won't up my medication or try new drugs. Hell about the only thing they want to keep trying is shots. I know these are big money makers for them. It is a great gimmick to rake in some more dough from the insurance company. However only one shot has ever worked. The Facet shot did help and gave me relief from most flank pain for about a year. I didn't get the ablation because the doctor said flat out it would hurt and not help prolong the effect of the shot. I was already getting the most relief I could hope for and yet they keep pushing other shots and the ablation. Let me ask the same question I did to the last PA who had the nerve to say I needed to get the ablation. Why the hell would I sign up for more pain from the ablation for no additional benefit ? Why would I allow something the doctor says I do not need ? Do you really need to jack up my bill another 2 grand ? SMH.
So welcome all to my Hell ! It's time to meet the devil and he looks a lot like a doctor. His minions sure look like some of these idiot politicians with their whacky ideas on curbing prescription drug abuse. Society meanwhile sits around and applauds my struggle and says my daily pain is perfectly acceptable. They sit by and heap scorn and derision upon me while allowing the medical profession to abuse me. Is this what society really wants life to be like ? If so maybe it is time to change society and quickly before these ideas spread to other areas