Discrimanation of Pain Patients

[hogie1]

How many of PAIN MANAGEMENT patients have the same problems out there? Pain management doesn't help you and you have to fight with SSD for your legal right to collect what is rightfully yours? The other problem you get hit with is now your local pharmacy which always refilled any of your prescriptions in the past up to six days early now has got you waiting till the last 30th day. Example U use you PC for prescription management, it tells u your prescription is eligible for refill, u click on to be refilled. Pharmacists call & informs you till wait till the 30th day. In ? you state why does the system inform you it is no eligible for refill, for it will lock you out prior if u attempt to check that box. Response is, well u should have some till that X day. It appears to me that the patient is now being discriminated against for using a controlled substance. Funny how they will refill anti inflammatory medication, anti depressants etc with NOOOOO problems. I even have a disabled son who is on auto refill and one is diazepam &  its refilled 3-4 day prior to 30th day. My major concern is once the pain clinic can't help us we get put on prescription management, another term for useless, helpless drug patient. SSD states we can do work when we can barely get through the day, oh by the way. They also don't think we suffer from the said side effects of heavy prescriptions we need to take. Employers would never hire an opiate user, its called drug test & worse of all we now get tagged as prescription abuse. When will all this discrimination end? None of my actions in the past have ever or could of caused so much discrimination until I got involved in pain management. I worked my whole life & operated two small business's which was very hard to give up. I also am a parent of an 11 year old disabled boy who requires all of his needs to be attended to, can't talk, walk feed himself etc. A 5 year old boy & 2 step sons 22 & 19. I my SSD Social Security hearing my disabled son was used as a tool against me for my eligibility to be a clamant. Imagine that, even though I showed payment proof of care for him to ease my physical  demands of  care. In a nut shell we our as a group discriminated against and we sit quite and suffer, subject to drug tests, pill counts 30th day refills, unable to get disability benefits and any other shameful exploit we can be subjected to. So my ? is  how long are we going to sit and take this discrimination, we need to have a voice. How should we become one and show we have had enough?        

[Fenderson]

I understand your frustration completely. They way people view anyone who takes opiates is not going to change. The media has made sure of that. It makes much better news to report on an overdose death than someone who has regained at least some quality of life by taking meds. The general public has been completely misled. Is there an abuse problem? Absolutely! But only by a small percentage of people who take the meds. They sell them or lie about their condition to get them. DEA has put lots of pressure on providers. The pee tests are not going away and the tight control on the meds is not going to change. Anyone who is taking pain meds should have no problem with random UA's. The person who doesn't want to pee or fails the testing shouldn't be on pain meds anyway. Again my advice is to establish a relationship with a small pharmacy. Keep looking until you find one that doesn't make you feel like scum for taking meds. They can be hard to find but they are out there. The key to the whole thing is trust. Trust between you and your provider and you and your pharmacist. I tell no one the meds I am on. Not even any doctors except for my provider. I am talking about if I go in for a cold or to the dentist or something like that. They can also make you feel like a criminal.

[shinty]

wow

[hogie1]

Yes I have dealt with those Bozo's @ Walgreens that is why I switched. On automatic refills for my son they would not have it ready & fully not in stock. My MS Contin, even though I would need it every 30-days would not be in stock and you would have to play find the pharmacy that had it in stock. That's all ok though, but don't u try and fill it b-4 30-days. You must be abusing then. This is why I switched but now same old BS with CVS. My son will be on auto refill & U will get a call, oh were sorry they don't have it or they have a small QTY and need to order the balance, same with the MS Contin. Never, Never did I ever give them a hard time for the incompetence they had displayed. Between my son and myself we purchase thousands of dollars of required meds from them and only go by their system of eligible legal, insurance authorized refillable medication. That is until 1 pharmacist who either had a bad experience with a patient or took a seminar has now started to play keeper of the prescription. I was so mad @ her I was going to walk in the pharmacy and throw my unused medication on the counter and let her have it. I thought better of it as they probably would call the police on me. Their time will come for their incompetence will shine trough again and that is when I will get my say and report their incompetence to corporate. My point is I as a chronic pain patient it has become clear to me from my experiences with Doctors, Social Security, Pharmacies and society in general we our isolated and discriminated against and we do not band together against this discrimination because for the most part we are ashamed of what has happened to us. In the beginning I was told so much BS about what was happening to me but I wouldn't take their answers and kept on with it till I finally got the medical proof and diagnostic test's to prove the Primary Physician wrong. Completely blown off and discriminated against because I was in pain. The pain management doctor was wrong also by wanting to implant a device in me that never would of helped me. It took an a credited Nero Surgeon who couldn't believe they never did a certain test on me and after that test explained my condition to me and took a good hour of his time to explain I wasn't crazy. It requires risky surgery and my prognosis is only 30%-80% chance of improvement, but not completely pain free. This latest incident with CVS was the final straw of me realizing even though I was already pretty sure of this discrimination. It has come to my attention that we as a group want to just give up and not see the Doctors any more or take the medications or seek the answers we require and have a right to obtain. Why, because we are treated unfairly and unjustly because we suffer in pain and just want it to stop. It takes over your life in the long run. These people don't live this life, if they did they certainly would not treat you this way. I'm positive a great deal of chronic pain patients go trough this but just don't get tighter and act. I can read and on many sites I read these stories that are for the most part very sad that this is happening at alarming rates. Somebody has to know were to start and begin to fight back against this unfair unrightfully treatment by society and the medical profession. I know this was long but I'm trying to get my view and experience across to get us together and stop hiding from these bully's. Pain Management, another joke of treatments, just a division of health care to bleed our insurance of unnecessary and useless procedures then monitor us like children on medication usage. In the long run it makes you feel more embarrassment and ashamed of your illness or illnesses. In my case they have me see a nurse practitioner now for they ran out of procedures. I'm not good enough to be seen by the Doctor who was going to cure me like God himself. Now it is pee tests random & what they call medication management. I must have flunked pain management for I wasn't cured. This pain management also has advised me to think long and hard about the surgery for they see a lot of failed back surgery people. Talk about the Doctors that treat you not being on the same page, yea that's us. So this is it, do we sit and stew or do something about it?            

[Fenderson]

I know exactly what you are going through. I live in Colorado and have found that Walgreens is the absolute worst. Their pharmacists act like they are your doctor, DEA, and mother all rolled into one. It's my understanding that it is up to the pharmacy how they do this. If your insurance simply won't pay till you hit the 30 day mark that's totally different but most insurance will pay at 28 days and some at 25 days. I would suggest that you find a small independent local pharmacy, and develop a relationship with them. They don't have the same "rules" as a corporate pharmacy. The final thing that made me seek out a home town place was when the pharmacist told me that he could go to jail for filling at 28 days. Total crap! I agree that we are discriminated against but until the abusers, and the street druggies stop using prescription meds it will not change. Good Luck to you...