pain in upper left side and back

[nickster30]

I have constant pain in my upper left side front and back. It worsens when I breathe and the pain also originatted below my left breast (a boring pain) and my left breast feels like it is not apart of my body...its very heavy and hurts. I did scans and there were no irregularities, I also did a  prolactin level test amoung a few and they were ok. The thing is it is getting worst and spreading down my left side. I also have not had my cycle in a year and the doctors are not helping me. I've lost hope but I can't cope anymore.


This discussion is related to Severe Chest Pain.

[buckboyy]

Last month I received a letter in the mail from my primary-care physician's office.  It stated that since new legislation in Ohio for pain-management has been passed, my doctor is referring me to a pain-management clinic and can no longer refill prescriptions of narcotic pain medications for patients who have been taking them for longer than 90 days.

To make matters worse, the patient must register with the clinic and then also submit to a urine screen for illicit drugs and have a psychological evaluation to see if they have a pretense or higher likelihood for drug or alcohol abuse.  After meeting these requirements, the pain-management facility can then design a treatment program for them and then register their narcotic drug usage in the state registry to satisfy the DEA.  Do you think doctors will care more about helping the patients, or more about meeting the state's mandates?  I have the feeling that compassion will take a back seat.

I've been taking hydrocodone/acetomenophen, 10/500 for almost 10 years, and I have to take 2 tabs at a time, every 4-6 hours, as needed, to knock-out my chronic joint and back pain.  I get 240 pills per-month because I'm allowed to take up to, but no more than, 8 pills per-day in a 24 hour period, or I'll exceed the safe level of acetomenophen consumption, which could lead to liver damage.

At this time, I have no desire to participate in a pain-management program because I have done so twice over the past 10 years, and both times resulted in a painful and expensive experience - with no improvement to my health or treatment.  I have no problem with the medications I take; however, everyone else seems to.  It is never a problem with me until someone wants to take them away without giving me a choice of my own or preference in my treatment options.

I have suffered through nerve-conduction studies, nerve blocks, and a series of 14 cortisone-steroid injections into my spine and under the window of x-rays for extra accuracy.  I've also had various cortisone-steroid injections in many of my afflicted joints.  All of those treatments were very painful and extremely expensive!  Not a single one of them worked for more than a few days.  Some spots turned out worse as I can still feel the stabbing of the needles or a recurring numbness that feels weird and horrible.  No way will I ever submit to such experimental procedures again!

I've talked to many long-term narcotic pain medication users and many have told me of similar experiences that I've had with non-narcotic analgesics.  For the most part, most of those drugs were ineffective as pain relievers and they also had far worse side-affects than the narcotic drugs did.

Plus, most of the non-narcotic drugs were much more expensive and insurance companies would not cover many of them, or else they would assign higher co-pays to them.  Insurance companies cited that there was a lack of long-term, pain-management usage studies concerning many of them, which was enough reasoning for their limited coverage.

I told the last pain-management doctor I saw that there are far worse things on Earth than being an addict - being in pain all the time is one of them.  Having to deal with ignorant and biased doctors is another.  I'm all for reducing my pain level and reducing the drugs I need to fight pain, but I want to do it on my terms and at my own pace.

My only income is from Social Security Disability and I cannot afford to pay $40.00 co-pays twice per-month and then still have to pay all the other co-pays I have.  The last thing I needed was for the state of Ohio to increase the cost of my healthcare, just so the DEA will know how many pills I take per-month.  This legislation is only going to create another niche for the black-market to exploit, and it will also force their own residents to boost another state's economy, one that has less stringent, prescription drug rules.

Forcing disabled residents into mandated pain-management programs will interfere with normal supply and demand market-forces in balancing healthcare competition to keep prices down and services from improving.  A huge influx of patients has already affected pain-management protocol and it's quality in order to serve such a large and fast increase on the limited resources of that industry.  Who will lower the quality and raise the cost of healthcare next?

[sandee1818]

Hi,
   I am so sorry your not getting any answers. Please do not give up though as there are doctors out there that will help you and will find the cause of your pain.
I really can't speculate what is wrong. I wish I could give you some answers.
What type of doctors have you seen?
Have you tried specialist?