First, let me say that, on a personal level, I like my pain management doctor and his nurse practitioner (M, a Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner, because I'm lazy). They're great people, and M spent more time than she had to just listening to me when I was in the hospital in June, manic as all hell because of some of the meds I was on.
This is a professional gripe/bitch/moan.
I think the pain management field is broken. There are people out to legally get high and abuse the system. Then there are the rest of us, who live every day of our shortened lives in pain most of you have never experienced, and are denied adequate pain control because of those who abuse the system.
So the fix is to crack down so hard that those of us in delirium-inducing pain have to endure it so that the people who want a buzz can't have one?
"...I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone..."
- Hippocratic Oath, Classical version
Withholding treatment causes harm to patients. I think the pain management establishment has forgotten this.
I'm ready to sever my relationship with the pain center and see if my neurologist will take over my pain management. At least he will return my phone calls and won't make me wait weeks for an office visit
~~~
Usually, I try to make light of my medical crap. This is not one of those days.
First, some background information. My current round of neurological meds tend to make me dream very vividly about whatever TV show/movie/book I've just watched or read before going to sleep. I watched "The Prophecy" for the first time in several years right before bed and that night became Thomas Daggett. I've gone back and re-watched the film since then and what I dreamed wasn't in the film. I wasn't just experiencing a scene first-person, I was getting the director's cut in my head.
Yesterday I was in so much pain that I was actually delirious off and on. I found myself living "Stargate Atlantis" (probably because a new episode had been on Friday night, so it was the freshest thing in my memory). I was being tortured for information (by the Genii, if you're familiar with the series) on how to sink the city. I didn't know how to sink the city, I was a member of the science contingent, studying plankton of all things. My torturers thought I was trying to hide information, so they kept going.
I have bruises at the base of my left thumb from where I was biting it, trying not to scream.
(Gods only know what my delusion would have been if I'd been watching Top Gear on BBCAmerica. "The....the Bugatti Veyron has 10 radiators and generates 1,001 brake-horsepower but I don't know how much torque the engine generates at 7,000 RPMs...")
All because I can't get an increase in my pain medications without an office visit, or an actual hospitalization, because some people like to get high.
Now, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy some of the side effects of using my meds properly. Yes, they make you feel good. Anyone who says differently is a liar. Admittedly, a bullet would feel better after gut-wrenching pain for four fucking hours.
Maybe I do need a nice Thorazine vacation. I don't need 10 years EMS experience to tell me that delusions are not a good sign.
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