Question for Other Chronic Pain Sufferers

[VictoriaIvy]

yeah and my MRI cost me $7,000. 00
because my insurance would not cover it, just to tell me what we already knew.
Funny thing is one day, I walked into a clinic doctor, and after waiting 5 hours, yes I said it! The goofy ball chic will a loud mouth, starts moving around the charts, she was high a kite! Then the girls said they just want to push here threw, because of the way she acted, so the asked her what meds. needed to be refilled, she go zanax, hydros, somas, and 2 other things.... all on welfare, man you should have seen her nails, so then after not getting into a damn fist fight and giving her some real pain, the nurse calls me in, and they acted as if I was going to dye tomorrow... I needed a MRI, and cat scan and oh and $500 dollars worth of blood work, for a script of flexeril... WTF??????????????? Talk about bending me over the barrel... Are you kidding me! I never went back.... I knew the Doctor had a rep. for disability/welfare folks but come on... the gov. must fork something extra for the scripts..... and to really stick it to me, I get a bill for $175 office call. My sister called there and asked what it would cost if she had no ins. $70 ... It's all a scam. and the goverments in on it!

[Stevo1]

yeah and my MRI cost me $7,000. 00
because my insurance would not cover it, just to tell me what we already knew.
Funny thing is one day, I walked into a clinic doctor, and after waiting 5 hours, yes I said it! The goofy ball chic will a loud mouth, starts moving around the charts, she was high a kite! Then the girls said they just want to push here threw, because of the way she acted, so the asked her what meds. needed to be refilled, she go zanax, hydros, somas, and 2 other things.... all on welfare, man you should have seen her nails, so then after not getting into a damn fist fight and giving her some real pain, the nurse calls me in, and they acted as if I was going to dye tomorrow... I needed a MRI, and cat scan and oh and $500 dollars worth of blood work, for a script of flexeril... WTF??????????????? Talk about bending me over the barrel... Are you kidding me! I never went back.... I knew the Doctor had a rep. for disability/welfare folks but come on... the gov. must fork something extra for the scripts..... and to really stick it to me, I get a bill for $175 office call. My sister called there and asked what it would cost if she had no ins. $70 ... It's all a scam. and the goverments in on it!

WOW
7 Grand for a MRI?
I have never seen one at that Cost!!!
That's gotta be some kind of Record!
Maybe the Guinness Book of World Records as the most Expensive MRI in the World!

I just googled the average cost of MRI $400 to $3500 being the Most expensive!
I would be making a stink about that bill!
I would be contacting all sorts of governing boards about that!

[teresita]

My husband just scheduled an MRI for himself for next week and it will be a standard $3100 but a seperate bill will come from a radiologist for around $200. Being early in the year we werent sure with deductibles not being met what we had to cash out and they are filing insurance first, no cash up front thank goodness.

Wanted to add that also sometimes insurances have a certain in network price they will pay and the network provider lowers the cost which is probably going to be the case here. Less is best

[Melly]

@ Kellyk and other posters in this thread -

Yes I get really irritated, sad, mad or disgusted depending on who it is this time giving me the hard time about pain meds. From family and really close friends, I find it the most hurtful though. I've even tried sharing news / medical articles and studies etc. over the years that make it very clear that it is rare to even become addicted to narcotics for valid pain control - And any euphoric side effects one might feel initially, cease to occur with chronic usage for chronic
pain. It never really helps though. Actually I don't even think I personally have ever even gotten anyone to actually read or listen to anything that I wanted them to regarding this issue. I think sometimes people are just very married to maintaining whatever their own beliefs are regardless of conflicting data that may be available to them. Or maybe this just says a lot about the kind of family members I have or the kind of friends I've chosen. Even possible that maybe I'm not that good at presenting the "intel". :-) Who knows? But it is definitely one of my biggest pet peeves ever!

You know what I think is the very funniest part though? And it is probably the same for all of you here. There is absolutely no one in my life, from before I ever needed pain control or that Ive met since already being on pain control ,who would ever know I am always on narcotics now - unless I have told them. No One. So it really would be kind of a joke to me if it wasn't so irritating.

On another note mentioned in this thread regarding outrageous medical costs etc.. It IS insane. I would hate to even know the number of overcharged-for completely unnecessary (and sometimes duplicate etc.) testing (Incl. MRIs, Xrays, etc) and all sorts of procedures I have had over the past 5/6 years that now have me over $60,000 thousand bucks in medical debt only. And I supposedly have (and pay for) what is considered to be very good health insurance. It's just nuts!
Regards,
Melly

[Hugo]

Amazing that an MRI can cost that much - I had two done a year or so ago, and while the first was covered by insurance, I had to pay for the second myself. It 'only' cost the equivalent of about $400.

[alumni]

@Melly
I have found it often to be helpful for chronic pain patients to gain as much information as they can about the thought processes and medical experiences of the healthcare professionals who are or might be treating them. Especially those specializing in a pain management practice.
If you are interested, there is a physician whom I have much respect for who contributes research and editorial articles to a range of publications many regarding the specifics of pain treatment protocols in the US.
Her name is Jennifer Schneider, M.D., Ph.D. One of her more descriptive discussions about this subject was written a couple of years ago for the Pain Practioner. I'm sure you can find it either on their web site or on hers.
Hopefully, the more you are aware of how these doctors make treatment decisions and assess their patients' conditions, the more effective your communications with them might be.
Also, while it is difficult to track contemporary statistics about how many chronic pain patients ultimately suffer addiction problems when treated with opioids, the estimates I have seen most often indicate somewhere between 10%-15% not 1/2 of 1%.

[Melly]

@ Alumni,

Thanks. I will check into her info. And actually, right after I typed that I realized I wasn't sure I was remembering that correctly or how reputable that source might have been either. So thx again.

Regards
Melly

[Stevo1]

Amazing that an MRI can cost that much - I had two done a year or so ago, and while the first was covered by insurance, I had to pay for the second myself. It 'only' cost the equivalent of about $400.

I am gonna take a guess that you live in Florida. It seems like certain states you can get MRI's really Cheep! But be aware that there are considerably Different Quality machines out there!
When I had my shoulder surgery done ...The surgeon who ordered the MRI specifically told me where to have it done (far away from my home when there was one right around the corner at the little local hospital) His explanation was the Local one was like a blurry Black and White Picture and the one I got was a Super Clear Color Picture! So to some extent you get what you pay for!!!

[Hugo]

Nope, I live in Taiwan. The quality of the MRIs I had recently was excellent - they looked clearer (to me) than the ones I had previously in the UK. I remember the technician telling me they were better machines than they used in the past after I expressed surprise at how quick the scanning procedure was. They were not in colour, though!

[Stevo1]

Nope, I live in Taiwan. The quality of the MRIs I had recently was excellent - they looked clearer (to me) than the ones I had previously in the UK. I remember the technician telling me they were better machines than they used in the past after I expressed surprise at how quick the scanning procedure was. They were not in colour, though!

I was close Not
The good old USA is a Ripoff

PS The color thing was an analogy

[Melly]

@ alumni - Been reading some of Jennifer Schneider articles as you recommended and just wanted to let you know that I'm finding them very interesting and enlightening. I'm thinking about getting a book of hers I saw on the site as well. Let me know if you get a chance if you have read it. And if so, and you dont mind, if you felt it was worth it. (Personally, I liked her writing style enough in her articles that i do think i would like it as well - but curious for your feedback.) So thanks again for the resource. I highly
recommend to others around here as well!

[tomsey1]

Your post about family and friends and their reaction to you taking narcotics brought up some memories from my past you might find enlightening or maybe amusing. My father was an anesthesiologist and growing up there was always large numbers of medicine bottles in the kitchen cabinets. Not prescription type bottles mind you, but the large kinds you see on the shelves of pharmacies. My dad would order hydros or codeine in bottles of 500 and have them sent UPS to our house. He would order them from the drug wholesalers and he listed our home address as his office address so they would send them there. He had a big time problem with narcotics but since he made good money no one ever called him on it. However, when I started to dip into the supply when I was around twenty years old, all of a sudden everyone went nuts trying to get me "fixed". I was sent to two different treatment centers and always made to feel like I was horribly broken in some way. But all this time my father continued his love affair with opiates and no one ever did anything about it. He practiced for over 40 years without any trouble from LE. This post is no bs. Absolute truth.

[suburb]

Im new to this forum and would like to know how I can learn about a particular pharmacy? I asked a question about some pharmacies- epharma and pharmasupplynow- and I was referred to learn about them in their respective forums. excuse me if i am mistaken, but the forum on them is in the restricted area and i do not have access to that yet. Can someone direct me to which forum i should be going to to learn more about those pharmacies?
thank you for your patience,
suburb

[crucibelle]

@suburb: I just did a search, and unfortunately, the threads for both of those pharmacies are located in the restricted/senior section of the forum. That means, they cannot be discussed in the open forum.

[Bailey2010]

After 4 major wrist surgeries and nerve damage I finally found a PM doc that will help me but had to sign a contract for the state and dic will only give me 50 ir oc per month. Lyrica too and that seems to help sometimes. A few times I try to tell doc I think I'm building a tolerance and dic tells me to take more lyrica. No more questions asked! Seems the docs are soo worried we are going to all turn into addicts they try to put us on these new medications that who knows what the long term side effects will be? Why not just stick to what works and get back to why u became a pm to begin with. To help chronic pain sufferers live a more productive life. I get blurry vision and memory loss on that drug so how is that improving the quality of my life? I'm grateful for the sympathy I do get from my doc but it's not enough which sends me into boards like this to find more help! If tge govt would just stop labeling everyone who takes pain meds drug addicts maybe the docs could do their job. I know I'm repeating many things that have been said before but now I have friends and family telling me, I just don't understand why u even need these meds??? Some are even telking me i should just do medical marijuana. Well that puts me to sleep. In sick and tired of docs not being able to do their jobs bc of govt and pharmacy beurocracy. And people telling me I that don't need the meds!!!

[Melly]

@ tomsey1, Wow, what a story!That must have been absolutely infuriating for you. I do believe it though. Pain or no pain, money and status can certainly put you above the law sometimes, huh? And perception (not possession) is 9/10th of the law, isnt it? Your story reminds me in a way about one of my fave movies, "Requiem for a Dream". I felt like it did a great job of illustrating the perception aspect especially of this kind of situation, depicting both a mother and son (separately) strung out on drugs, contrasting ones' legal and socially acceptable (though equally deadly) descent into drug addiction and its consequences and with the other's illegal street route. It's also funny to me that the people (in my life anyway) that give me the hardest time are ALWAYS the same ones who take the most meds themselves (or substantially more than moderate alcohol). Anyway, great story, so thanks for sharing
Regards,
Melly

Your post about family and friends and their reaction to you taking narcotics brought up some memories from my past you might find enlightening or maybe amusing. My father was an anesthesiologist and growing up there was always large numbers of medicine bottles in the kitchen cabinets. Not prescription type bottles mind you, but the large kinds you see on the shelves of pharmacies. My dad would order hydros or codeine in bottles of 500 and have them sent UPS to our house. He would order them from the drug wholesalers and he listed our home address as his office address so they would send them there. He had a big time problem with narcotics but since he made good money no one ever called him on it. However, when I started to dip into the supply when I was around twenty years old, all of a sudden everyone went nuts trying to get me "fixed". I was sent to two different treatment centers and always made to feel like I was horribly broken in some way. But all this time my father continued his love affair with opiates and no one ever did anything about it. He practiced for over 40 years without any trouble from LE. This post is no bs. Absolute truth.

[rational80]

I had some hydrocodone syrup, maybe 30mg of HC, and it had about 5% of alcohol in it and normally, 30mg wouldn't do much for me but it was a nice smooth feeling. I never drank on pain pills much because I tended to drink a lot back then and was afraid I'd OD. It seems a small amount with a safe dose of pain meds can really make a difference, But I'd be careful because the potentiation of the synergistic effect can make 1 + 1 = 4. and each individual is different so beware.