How do i gently ask for an increase in pain meds?
I’ve been on 10 mg oxy for almost 2 years now. recently switched to a new Pm dr because my old one retired ( thank god, honestly. He was horrible and didn’t listen to anything i said ever.)
i was on a higher dose, 10 mg 4 x a day but my dr decided to take a vacation he forgot to tell his staff or patients about and left all of his opioids patients with no meds for a month. So his relief (that i never met) had to prescribe everybody’s meds and sent 10 mg 2 x a day and 5 mg once a day to my pharmacy and i guess at that point my dr knew he was leaving because he wouldn’t up the dose back to what it was before. (white coats came and sat in at all his appointments and he started weirding everyone out saying we shouldn’t be on pain meds and it was just for surgery etc and we gotta wean down. Out of character completely so i assume it was the DEA) Despite my explaining i built a tolerance and taking me off an entire pill and a half suddenly was greatly affecting me. Frankly the guy didn’t give a shit.
Eventually i got used to the dose and learned to pace myself and when the pain comes back i just suffer till my next dose. I have a high metabolism so the meds last maybe 4/5 hours at max before I’m hurting pretty badly again. This is month 5 or 6 something like that on the lowered dose and i’m to the point it’s not helping at all. i’ve got another disc slip in the same place for the 3rd time. they’re talking about a fusion. a new slip on my cervical spine and a new slip in my thoracic. severe stenosis. arthritis, sciatica, nerve damage and pain and deformities from the disc bulges pressing on my vertebrae.
You get my point.
I’ve only seen this new pain management doctor twice. The first time i went without meds during the screening and intake (they had to get my urine test back, i get it) and i went into withdraws and suffered badly for a week.
At my second appointment he actually looked surprised when telling me how bad my new MRI was on my lower spine and that i needed a spinal fusion. He had no problem at that point prescribing my 2.5 oxy a day and a muscle relaxer. I don’t know how to tell this guy that these doses aren’t helping me. That i’m spending most of my day in bed not even able to function. That i know it’s wrong and im a bad patient but im having to pop an extra half almost every day that im wanting to be up and active because the 5 mg dose i can take in the morning or at bedtime does absolutely nothing for me. Which i end up being short and suffering on the days i have to go without to make sure my pill count ( if ever there is one) will be correct.
This will only be my 3rd visit to him in september and i dont know a way to explain this to him other than how i tried explaining it to my old dr and got absolutely nowhere with him. i also dont want to put my old PM dr down or talk badly about him to the new guy. i know how that looks. But the truth is, i got treated like the bare minimum as good enough and anything more than that was asking for too much.
How can i approach this without coming off badly? Most of you know the kind of song and dance we have to do to survive this system. Thank you in advance.