Posted by RN320 on September 21, 2006, at 8:28:40
In reply to Re: Just Checking In, posted by exquilter on September 20, 2006, at 19:44:04
Hi Exquilter-
Yes, I'm still here.....thanks so much for caring. It's been a rough week- as Phillipa alluded to, I'm going through a lot of testing right now- ever since the fall no one's smiling amoungst my physicians, and my new PCP must think that she's inherited the patient from, well, you know! I'm getting turned upside down to see if they can find the reason for the big fall and now there's a second one (not near any stairs, with no injuries.....I jut went out on my family room floor- literally). So now the workup is going on between neuro and cardiology.
I still have a horrible headache, and my pdoc took me off of the Topomax that the neurologist prescribed because it was doing nothing for 2 weeks and my insurance doesn't cover this drug for some reason and there's no generic, so of course it's expensive. My pdoc said that it would have worked if it was going to work by now, and said he didn't like me on it anyway because it can cause cognitive s/e (he referred to it as "getting the stupids") and he didn't like the mix with my other meds. The neurologist wanted me to have NeuroPsych testing to see if I have any permanent damage from the fall. Both my Pdoc and Therapist are against that because they say it will be useless with the major depressive disorder and the psychotic features and the meds that I'm on. The PCP really likes the neurologist (I didn't care for him, as he did as so many do- he judged me based on my meds as a nut case to begin with, almost like from the moment he walked through his door he treated me like a "typical nutcase".......you know how you can just tell when someone's doing that to you?) My PCP says I was just being overly sensitive, but this has happened to me so many times I know the feeling. The PCP supports the neurologist on getting the neuro-psych testing done (which so far the places they referred me to don't participate in Medicare and it's outrageously expensive because it takes several hours of a neuropsych's time). My Pdoc and Therapist have said "no" emphatically. My PCP wants my Pdoc to put me back on the Topomax, doesn't understand "why he can't accomodate this drug by maybe moving some of your other meds around" (this poor woman has no idea that it's taken 5 years to get where I am, so it's not an easy thing to do)- my Pdoc has dug his heels in and said "no" again. So it looks like she's going to need to mediate between the neurologist and my Pdoc, who aren't playing nicely together in the sandbox..........I'm removing myself from it. I am now seeing the benefits of having gotten a PCP. Who in the world would want to be one.
As Phillipa mentioned, she and I have been communicating via our own personal e-mails. I don't know how to do this......she's the expert. If you're interested in doing that, I'm sure that she'd help. She's so sweet.......you are to, to be concerned and supportive yet anonymous. Until I started reading Dr. Bob's message board a couple of months ago, I had never had an experience like this, and it's been good.Maybe you can help me with this one- pain threshold. I know that pain tolerance is an individual thing. I used to believe that I had really high pain tolerance- almost abnormally high- eg.- walked around (working, airline travel a few days a week, in heels, dragging a briefcase with laptop)with a ruptured and completely dessicated L4/L5 disk. I had complete compression of the sciatic nerve and had sciatic pain for 6 months and never took more than Motrin. No one knew that I never had a period of time where I could sit or lay for more than 2 hours for 6 long months. I finally went and got the myelogram when my leg started giving out in jetways, and when I couldn't sit in airline seats (when the FAA said sit I couldn't always and it was getting me into trouble). They never finished the myelogram because the sciatic nerve was so badly compressed that the dye wouldn't even track. The radiologist wanted to know how long I'd been disabled and was stunned when I told him I'd never missed a day of work. I felt pretty good in the recovery room. Required very few pain meds. Same with my hysterectomy from a pain perspective- required few drugs. So when I say I'm in pain, people who know me tend to cringe. My head feels like someone hit me over the right side with a baseball bat and gave the left a little whack just for the sake of posterity. I am in pain. My pdoc, who I really like, is very "old school" relative to prescribing pain meds, thus is pretty insensitive to me saying "I'm in pain". He didn't know me before when I leaped tall buildings! My PCP has given me Tylenol #4 and I take 2 at a time, but they don't want me taking any more than twice a day because they're allegedly so strong. I've got news....they don't work. I know that they're very limited with pain meds that can be used with the EMSAM (no darvon, ultram, toradol, demerol- those I konw for sure, and they're all weaker than Tylenol #4's anyway so who cares?). My PCP says she doesn't want to go to Vicodin (I've never had it before, so I don't know if it would work.) To me, that's also an insensitive response to management of a patient's pain. These days, all hospitals are required to document how they assess and treat patients for pain and it seems that in my case no one has stepped into the 21st century. Either they're insensitive or for some reason I've turned into a big baby since the depression. If they want to say that this is "all in my head", they're right.....MY HEAD IS KILLING ME. It's hard to fight impulses to take 4 of them at a time to see if they work at THAT level. I'm really at my wits end on this. My Therapist says they're all behaving like a bunch of knuckleheads. Do you have a perspective to share? Gotta go- more testing.
/m
poster:RN320
thread:677469
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060919/msgs/687857.html