My experience with pain clinics

[LiquidOrgasm]

I had a bad car accidents resulting in tension headaches, my visit to the pain clinic which took 5 months to get in consisted of getting 2 steroid shots into my neck, no medication, nothing, just steroids. Never going back.

[no name]

i did alot of research before i went to pain mgt, and made sure the dr i was seeing did "MEDICATION MANAGEMENT" before i made an appt otherwise there are the intervetionial pain drs that are doing epidural /steroid injections and then send you elsewhere to get a script or they'll do you a big favor and script you 12 5\500 vics to get you by for a month till you can see a dr that can really help-investigate before you go if it doesnt say the dr does medication managment find another
NN

[sambob]

I went and saw an interventional pain Dr this week and I was really surprised. When I made the appt the nurse made it clear that they do not prescribe meds, I asked if they'll prescribe non narcotic medsand she said yes, but they primarily give injections. anyways I went on Monday, and towards the end of our exam I asked him if he could recommend a Dr I could see to help with some pain relief via meds, mostly at night to help me get some rest, since I knew that he was primarily an injection Dr. He surprised me by saying he doesn't mind prescribing me something for when I really need relief, he said he understands that injections are not the end all solution and is willing to do both, injections and meds. I just gotta figure out how long he expects 40 5/500mg to last...according to the prescription bottle it's a 10 day supply but I do not think that's what he intended.

[MNLady]

My guess would be that he means for you to not use the Vicodin every day and that it will last you a month.

When I went to an interventional doctor a few years ago, they gave me Tramadol. Told me they did not RX opiates, although I had already mentioned that I did not want opiates from them as my PCP and I have an oral agreement that I would only seek opiate RX's through him.

I had two injections too and never did any good, but I did continue with the Tramadol. After I told my PCP about the shot doctors RX'ing it and it helped, he was happy to write a script for 240 a month.

[LiquidOrgasm]

Thanks a lot for the feedback, ill make sure I look for "medication management" before going to another pain clinic.

[chell55]

The pain clinic I go stated on their web site that they will not prescribe medication alone. You have to have epidurals or shots of some kind. I don't mind as the shots are helpful to me. I only wish they lasted longer. My doctor prescribes adequate medication as well so it works for me.

One day I did hear one of his patients say that the doctor told her she would have to stay on the medication only as the shots weren't helping her. So I assume if you have tried the shots a few times and they didn't help he might continue prescribing your medication. They don't like to advertise it though.

[guitargis]

Epidural! What a deal. Throw in a full frontal lobotomy, and we are back to the days of the spinal tap.

[watcher99]

Pain clinics make allot of money with injections and barely nothing with prescribing medication. Good luck finding a clinic to work with you.

[dsteury]

All pain clinics are good for is to take your cash you might as well do yoga. You can get what you want from you PCP yu have to play the game. I won't go into what the game is here but it's worked for me a hundred times. Years ago used to get CII ,eds like candy but that was days long gone by.

[Ofcourse]

I dunno, maybe it was just mine. Though it was a pain clinic they were pretty active at trying to treat the problems through injections, PT and meds. Granted, that may have been an attempt to cover their butt.

Then I also think of the the time they tried to bump me to CIII without me asking. Needless to say I declined.... Some may call me naive but something about it just screamed don't do it. Did I make any sense....cause I'm pretty sure I just talked out of both sides of my mouth lol

[ButterPants]

Do the Florida pain clinics still do pain management with meds?
I remember years ago they took out full page ads in many small papers advertising medical pain management. Does this still happen or has the state or DEA shut them down?

[acman]

As a South Florida resident who has been going to PM for years .... I can tell you they are still flourishing despite the pressure from the DEA and state regulations.
I still get #240 Roxicodones 30mg and #180 Dilaudid 8 mg every month. The back pages of the New Times paper are still filled with plenty of ads for pain management. As many as I've seen.

[Oscar Contin]

As a South Florida resident who has been going to PM for years .... I can tell you they are still flourishing despite the pressure from the DEA and state regulations.
I still get #240 Roxicodones 30mg and #180 Dilaudid 8 mg every month. The back pages of the New Times paper are still filled with plenty of ads for pain management. As many as I've seen.

Hey man. Can you pm me? I have a few questions i dont wanna put on here. Im an ex DB member lookin for help. I dont have enough posta yet to pm i dont think. Thx

[refpoc1]

reading all your posts here and really,man, lady, i can relate,and it really gets to me! whats with these epidural shots?? Listen. i know they work and I get ONLY up to 2 MAYBE 3 times a year epidural shots, it seems to me anymore may cause complications of its own., so far, i talked to 1 doctor and 2 of their secretarys who made it clear you must get epidurals regular if you want medication!!!this one doctor would get angry when i did not want anymore epidurals, and said no epidurals no medication,,
It seems i cant find a legetamit pain clinic , most of them here is pushing shots in the back at a rate that seems dangerous? Is it me or what? i am not going to let a clinic use my body as a pin cushion in order to get pain releif meds<

[Lynx4]

reading all your posts here and really,man, lady, i can relate,and it really gets to me! whats with these epidural shots?? Listen. i know they work and I get ONLY up to 2 MAYBE 3 times a year epidural shots, it seems to me anymore may cause complications of its own., so far, i talked to 1 doctor and 2 of their secretarys who made it clear you must get epidurals regular if you want medication!!!this one doctor would get angry when i did not want anymore epidurals, and said no epidurals no medication,,
It seems i cant find a legetamit pain clinic , most of them here is pushing shots in the back at a rate that seems dangerous? Is it me or what? i am not going to let a clinic use my body as a pin cushion in order to get pain releif meds<

That's their money maker. They don't make anything writing out scripts but they get a ton of money for the shots and nerve ablations. I went to one of those clinics for 4 years and I am worse off in some areas than I was before I went to them.

The doctor I have now only writes scripts. It's his office, no other doctors are there, it's in a small lovely old house and the parking lot can only hold about 6 cars. There's never more than 3 cars when I go each month. His office is in a neighborhood and you don't know it's there unless you have the address; no signs or anything that say it's a pain management office. But, before I was referred to him I had to go through a psych visit to make sure I wasn't an addict or junkie or something. The psychiatrist said that only about 1% of PM doctors write prescriptions and nothing else, so I truly lucked up. I don't intend to do anything to mess it up.

The truth is that most people are going to be stuck getting shots and EMGs and xrays and nerve ablations and more MRIs and anything else they can think of to make money. My old PM had so many patients that we often had to sit outside because there were no more seats inside. A big money making machine and 6 hours of torture waiting for your appointment that was supposed to be at 9:00 am. It's ridiculous and I can't tell you how bad I feel for everyone stuck at one of those places. I just pray that my PM doesn't expand and turn into one of those. He even has a policy that after so many clean UAs you don't have to see him anymore. You simply come in once a month and pick up your scripts and leave. If you are having trouble with your meds you can get in to see him any time and he gives you as much time as you need to talk about what your problems are.

My opinion is hunt for someone who is doing it alone or maybe only 2 doctors. And make sure you don't see a bunch of operating rooms in the back. If they are connected to a University or large hospital they are going to experiment on you and you'll end up in someone's published paper about the percentage of patients who do better with this, that or the other procedure. No more of those places for me.

[sambob]

@Lynx4, thank you, your post really helps, I guess there is hope. I am currently at an interventional pain specialists, shot Dr. I tried it once about 6-8 weeks ago and it didn't work at all. I went in again and spoke with the Dr. last week and he suggested trying shots in the same area as last time and also lower in my back. He knew that I was having issues with insurance and payments so he didn't charge me for the 2 shots that he had done previously and suggested that I do it w/o sedation, b/c it costs a lot of money. So I did them, 4 shots altogether, not too painful just uncomfortable. It's been over a week and I don't feel any improvement. I think that'll be the last time I take those shots. I know someone who tried the shots to no avail and the Dr. recommended them to another Dr. to provide meds, so hopefully he can do the same for me, we'll see....

[53chevy]

sambob, i've been thruogh so many different rounds of shots i felt loke a pin cushion at one point . i have to say i've heard they work for some people but they never did a thing for me . and , yes , they are expensive. the last dr, i used didn't want to give me enuogh of the sedation to even sedate me . they usually use versaid and fentanyl for that procedure but they didn't have enuogh medicine in the i.v. to even stun me much less sedate me.