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Mar. 23rd, 2026 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catharsis_logsI got a new doctor again, cuz the doc before her just straight up vanished, and the doc before that went into home health where the pay, hours, and the way she's treated are all better and allow her to see her newborn (he'd be around two/three now). I've gone through the spectrum a lil, my first doc at this office was amazing, totally sweet, believed me when I said things, maybe was a little too into prescribing according to other doctors but we had a good relationship.
The doc after her was... intresting. I didn't really get to have more than one/two appts with her before she just left. I don't begrudge her leaving, it might've been because she was a very dark skinned black lady from the east coast who was apparantly a big name who got married and came to the practice in my small very white town. I've heard about some nightmares so my speculation says that she got tired of being treated like shit.
My "current" doc has been at my office for like decades. She was up front with me that her priority was the patients she was seeing before me, that she might retire in a year because her husband is retiring, and I was very understanding about that, but.
I was tired, and I'd practically just woken up and I was on autopilot and not quite all there. I said something about being tired all the time, and how showering was very hard and I was extremely tired and in pain afterwards and needed like a day to recover. She said "that doesn't sound right." and my brain interpreted it as dismissive. She looked at my meds and said "no wonder you're tired"
I talked a lil about my cyclo and how it generally helps me as a cover pain med, and that I was taking 1/4 pill every night b4 bed because it helped my muscles untense from the day enough for me to fall asleep. She said both that I seemed "Dependent" but also that the dose I was taking anything I might be getting would probably be placebo.
Well, the word Dependent scared me. I have chronic pain, so of course I am depended upon my pain medication. She intimidated me so much with that word and the way she was acting that I felt no choice but to agree to go off or lower one of my pain meds. I didn't get a chance to tell her that I consider my meds good as they are, I would rather be tired than in so much pain I can't think or move. With the meds I'm on, I feel that my life and my side effects are worth it.
I'm goign to go in tomorrow with a little speech. It's a tiny appointment and I want to get across: I want to stay on my current meds please. If you force me to taper down on one of my pain meds (because I said that I'd more willing to go down on my Gabapentin than my cyclo) I will but I'd like a guarantee that if I have increased pain with only a minor growth of energy that I can go back to my previous dose. I would like to go to physical therapy so I can learn to manage my scoliosis better, find exercises or something that I can do about the increasing pain I feel when standing for periods of time.
My little speech so far is:
Before we start I'd like to say that I do consider myself to be in a really decent and tolerable place with my medications, not perfect (what is), but for the most part I feel they're doing a good enough job balancing pain with any medication drowsiness. I do know the difference between the kind of exhaustion & fatigue I feel and the drowsiness I get from certain medications. For instance, I know it's been a good idea to take my cyclobenzaprine when the pain is better AND I'm not feeling any drowsiness.
I think the shortness of the last appointment didn't really give us a chance to get to know each other. I was unprepared and tired so when I was called dependent upon a medication it immediately put me on guard and worried about being described as a 'difficult patient' which altered everything I felt like I could say and do. I am a person with scoliosis and chronic pain, of course I'm dependent on my pain medication. The meds that I'm on mean I don't have profoundly bad pain days every month, instead I have a really bad pain day maybe once a year.
Really bad pain days are when I'm in so much pain that I can't think, or when I'm in such an amount of pain that I can't move.
The doc after her was... intresting. I didn't really get to have more than one/two appts with her before she just left. I don't begrudge her leaving, it might've been because she was a very dark skinned black lady from the east coast who was apparantly a big name who got married and came to the practice in my small very white town. I've heard about some nightmares so my speculation says that she got tired of being treated like shit.
My "current" doc has been at my office for like decades. She was up front with me that her priority was the patients she was seeing before me, that she might retire in a year because her husband is retiring, and I was very understanding about that, but.
I was tired, and I'd practically just woken up and I was on autopilot and not quite all there. I said something about being tired all the time, and how showering was very hard and I was extremely tired and in pain afterwards and needed like a day to recover. She said "that doesn't sound right." and my brain interpreted it as dismissive. She looked at my meds and said "no wonder you're tired"
I talked a lil about my cyclo and how it generally helps me as a cover pain med, and that I was taking 1/4 pill every night b4 bed because it helped my muscles untense from the day enough for me to fall asleep. She said both that I seemed "Dependent" but also that the dose I was taking anything I might be getting would probably be placebo.
Well, the word Dependent scared me. I have chronic pain, so of course I am depended upon my pain medication. She intimidated me so much with that word and the way she was acting that I felt no choice but to agree to go off or lower one of my pain meds. I didn't get a chance to tell her that I consider my meds good as they are, I would rather be tired than in so much pain I can't think or move. With the meds I'm on, I feel that my life and my side effects are worth it.
I'm goign to go in tomorrow with a little speech. It's a tiny appointment and I want to get across: I want to stay on my current meds please. If you force me to taper down on one of my pain meds (because I said that I'd more willing to go down on my Gabapentin than my cyclo) I will but I'd like a guarantee that if I have increased pain with only a minor growth of energy that I can go back to my previous dose. I would like to go to physical therapy so I can learn to manage my scoliosis better, find exercises or something that I can do about the increasing pain I feel when standing for periods of time.
My little speech so far is:
Before we start I'd like to say that I do consider myself to be in a really decent and tolerable place with my medications, not perfect (what is), but for the most part I feel they're doing a good enough job balancing pain with any medication drowsiness. I do know the difference between the kind of exhaustion & fatigue I feel and the drowsiness I get from certain medications. For instance, I know it's been a good idea to take my cyclobenzaprine when the pain is better AND I'm not feeling any drowsiness.
I think the shortness of the last appointment didn't really give us a chance to get to know each other. I was unprepared and tired so when I was called dependent upon a medication it immediately put me on guard and worried about being described as a 'difficult patient' which altered everything I felt like I could say and do. I am a person with scoliosis and chronic pain, of course I'm dependent on my pain medication. The meds that I'm on mean I don't have profoundly bad pain days every month, instead I have a really bad pain day maybe once a year.
Really bad pain days are when I'm in so much pain that I can't think, or when I'm in such an amount of pain that I can't move.
