Re: Duragesic to Donna

[Guest guest]

I was reading about how a few of you were using a durogesic

patch....is this for chronic pain relief? How the heck do you get a

dr to help with pain management? I only get " you need to go to

the ER " . Their only solution is to knock Cameron out with

Demerol or Morphine for a week or so....and then send him back

home. Is this patch something that allows a little " normal " life at

home? (We both almost live on Darvocet right now.)

Donna Womack

Donna,

Living on Darvocet is a poor approach to appropriate pain

maintenance. I was doing the same thing with my Percocet. I

was having to take it several times a day, day in and day out. I

finally told my gastroenterologist that using a pain medication

that only covered me for four - six hours maximum on a full time

basis wasn't good for me. It wasn't enough, and I was worried

about the long term affect of taking that much acetaminaphen

every day....what might this do to my healthy liver? This was even

with the lower 325 mg. that are available with the Percocet 10's.

Fortunately, before this I had seen a pain clinic doctor who wrote

a report to my GI that there may come a time when the Percocet

would not be enough.

I ASKED my GI to consider the duragesic patch, expecting him to

object, and was surprised and relieved when he immediately

agreed that this would be much better for me. I had taken in

literature about the duragesic that I had printed out from their

website, prepared to fight for it, but he never even asked to see it.

He just wrote the script, seeming happy to have the pain issue

off his hands.

I'm very pleased with this way of managing my pain, and suggest

that perhaps you could do the same with your doctor. Going to

the ER every few weeks, months.....whatever, for management of

chronic pain is ridiculous and expensive. Your doctor needs to

understand, accept and treat this as a CHRONIC condition. It's

not going to get better, it's not going to go away, and you both

need to be treated as chronic patients, not someone who needs

a temporary " fix " !

If your doctor can't treat you as chronic pain patients, then I

advise you to find a pain management clinic where they are used

to this and used to handling patients who live with chronic pain.

Sorry for the rant, but it annoys me to see doctors treat their

patients this way. It destroys any quality of life you have, and it's

upsetting when there are options available to improve your daily

pain maintenance. And I just can't imagine what the cost of

frequent trips to the ER for years and years on end would be.

Don't forget, your health insurance does have a cap, and if you're

having to go to the ER more than once or twice a year, or looking

at any extended hospitalizations, that maximum's going to be

reached at some point.

Let us know if you have any success with this with your doctor.

With hope and prayers,

Heidi

Heidi H. Griffeth

South Carolina

SC and SE Regional Representative

PAI, Intl.

Note: All comments or advice are personal opinion only, and

should not be substituted for professional medical consultation.