When I saw my lung specialist on Tuesday, she told me she had injured her back somehow. She was still in terrible pain after almost two weeks.
So we got talking and her DR had told her to lie totally flat and keep ice on her back. WRONG!
I told her how I try to live with the pain, including hear, lieing on the side , with knees bent, back aligned and shoulders and hips straight , with a small pillow between the knees.
She called me last night about 10pm and thanked me. She tried to manage her pain in the ways I explained to her, rather than what the Dr had told her and she said that doing it my way, she did find some relief.
I told her that Drs would do better if they listened more to their patients, especially those who were living with the problems that the DRs were trying to treat. Those patients know what helps and learn what to do through experience, and she agreed with that also.
If ice feels better -use it or if hear feels better than that is what you should use. Ice usually will help at first when the swelling is a problem, but heat seems to help more people to deal with long term pain.
This Dr told me I should call the pain specialist that reccommended the pain meds for me. I did, and the pain specialist agreed that I was not getting enough pain meds. BUT, since I was sent to him for evaluation and not treatment that he couldn't help me. He did say he would speak to the Rheumatologist that is writing my pain scripts.
The Rheumy says that he doesn't believe in breakthrough pain relief. He thinks that the Emergency Room would be happy to give me a shot at any time that I needed extra pain relief.
He must not understand how ERs operate, The ER calls pain patients GOMER (get outta my emergency room) they will force you to wait for hours, pain patients are considered to be wasting the time and are not seen at all until they can put them off no longer. The nurses are instructed to "Let the wait" they are only looking for drugs.
NOT and so I continue to be in needless suffering and there is just no help out there for me. I cannot get anyone to listen.
Living in terrible pain is just not living. It's existing and not having even a few hours of relief. But I think if I were to be without pain for a time I would just sleep. Sleep is hard to come by. And there again, the Dr doesn't believe that pain wakes me up,
He says, "You can't feel pain in your sleep-so therefore it can't wake you up" How crazy is that?
We all know that pain keeps us awake and when we do sleep, it wakes us up.
Another thing is that most pain patients have to sign contracts, take urine or blood tests. This is not the way we should be treated.
We are not addicts. We are people in pain and we may be dependant on narcotics to have any quality of life and we should not be subjected to being made to feel like criminals.
Educate the Drs, Speak up and Speak out. Let the world know that just because we are in pain doesn't mean that we can't have good days when the pain may be less.
We can be happy and even laugh even when we are suffering. We are people in pain. Pain can only rule our lives when we can't get the proper help to control that pain.
WE DESERVE BETTER
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