This is my first foray on BrainTalk, so bear with me. My wife has suffered with terrible pain for many years due to peripheral neuropathy caused by diabetes. Her pain was reasonably controlled thru a variety of meds, including some narcotics. Apparently there are some recent studies that contend that her pain can be reduced by cutting back on her meds. This has done nothing but make her pain much worse. We live in Richmond, VA and have seen PM docs here, at the University of Virginia and as far away as Winchester and and Newport News. Does anyone know of a PM doc in Virginia who will actually listen to the patient and is not afraid to prescribe medications? Any suggestions or insight will be greatly appreciated.
-
-
Big dog welcome to brain talk, I don't know of any doctors in the Virginia area but I can share this with you, my husband has diabetes and peripheral neuropathy in his feet! He has suffered for years has been on so many meds to help with the pain. He is now taking a vitamin B1 called Nu Remedy ask your Doctor about it when you find one, it helped him over night and he can walk without too much pain( it did not take it away, it just lessened it) you can look it up and ask her Doctor . We are not Doctors , but I would ask you to check-with him or her and research this.it does not take the place of the regular
meds, it just helps them work better . His neurologist that gives him his pain meds said he will maybe cut down the gabapenten (spelling) , he is having , great results ! Good luck ,GING -
Hi BigDog and welcome. I was hoping someone would come with some ideas. I came across this site but don't know how helpful it will be. I will see what else I can find. I know how terribly hard it is to find a good PM doc that listens and treats. Many here are struggling with the same thing.
Here is the link, Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...
((((hugs)))) for you and your wife.
Comment
-
welcome to BT BigDog. seems to me the news lately is that narcotic drugs are no longer prescribed the way they have been in the recent past. several reasons for this: cost,side effects (including death),addiction,street selling,etc. and of course different states have different laws.
hopefully your wife will soon find a good PM doctor. however she should be prepared to use every resource available for finding ways to help relieve her pain. it's seems downright cruel to me to give someone drugs & then take them away but apparently this is the future.
you might try posting on the PN forum here,not sure it's active these days but you can change that!Comment
-
Good luck, bg dog - used to live in Richmond - unfortuately before so can't help you there. My doc. has me on Nark's and Clonadine, it was approved for P.N. even though it is a B.P. med. Ithas provided me some relef. still have friends there, My understandng s that PM Doc's are hard to come by so good luck. Hope this fnds you and your wfe as well as can be.
Blessings
Alex44
SkypilotComment
-
Thank you for your help, it has been a battle just to keep the meds she has. The Dr. is saying that there is some new study out that narcotics cause more pain the longer you take them, so they cut my wife's meds and it's been a year and the pain has not gotten any better it has gotten worse, so much for their theory! We don't know anything about this study or where it originates from and seems the Dr's we ask don't know either, it's just something they heard about, go figure. I've heard about Big Foot that doesn't make it so. People with severe chronic pain understand that their are people out there that take advantage and try to get more than they need and it makes it hard for the honest people to control their pain. Good Luck to everyone out there who has chronic pain and their Dr is to afraid to treat them properly.Comment
-
BigDog sounds like your wife got a doc that learns his medicine from the Grapevine School of Rumor. That's a dang shame but as you said many of us struggle with our medical care. The medical community seems to have gone nuts and nobody is asking the pain patients what they think. You stick around you will find that we all have our horror stories. I hope you do stick around.
Good luck to you and your wife on searching for a new doc.
Comment
-
BigDog, I hope your wife is able to find a good PM doctor; they are so hard to find. The "theory" those docs are referring to is known as "opiate-induced hyperalgesia". They actually believe that the opiates are causing the pain or making one's perception of the pain worse! I really disagree with this theory. It sounds like just another excuse to NOT prescribe opiates.
I've had a bit of scientific training, so I can decipher whether or not their "theories" are pretty much pulled out of thin air. Now, I'm sure that SOME scientists out there have done a few studies on so-called "opiate-induced hyperalgesia", but some of those studies are methodologically flawed, others have a patient selection bias, etc. In other words, a scientist can pretty much come up with a study to "prove" or "disprove" just about any "theory" out there. Meanwhile, we suffer because of their misguided "theories".
If all we had to do to end our pain was stop taking our meds, we all would have done that years ago! Again, this is a pet theory of opiophobic doctors. When doctors don't want to write a narcotic script, they can say, "Oh, but I'm doing it for your own good! So that your pain levels will eventually be lower". Yeah, right. If only THEY had to suffer chronic pain!
Good luck in your search! A compassionate PM doctor will make all the difference in the world.
EvaComment
Comment