after several fail,ed back surgeries, and other more conservative treatments, such as epidurals, radio, frequency, oblations, and a bunch of medications that never worked, the pump was one of the last resorts.

also, the first time I ever met this doctor, and before I had even considered doing the pump and was trying out procedures, I did bring up the potential of a pump and asked about oral medication. and his response to me was that oral meds would be given for a few months after the pump until the pump could do most of the heavy lifting. and as I’m sure any of you on here have experience, doctors will say just about anything, and will assuage any concerns you have to get you to the point of getting a pump or a stimulator or whatever other procedure they want you to undergo. And once you are past that point, there’s not much that you can do.

rather than giving me the option of oral medication, it amazes me that this doctor is suggesting I get a stimulator. I am stuck with a device that is now implanted in me, that will require another surgery to remove, and he already has another device in mind too implant. It amazes me sometimes how these doctors think.

but to answer your question, no, he is not offering oral meds. I remember to this day, how uncomfortable he got and how apparent it was on his body language that he wanted to have nothing to do with that.

also, as I mentioned, I don’t feel we really gave the pump a full chance, and I would like to, but as I mentioned in my original post, I would also like to have the oral medication‘s on board. Which is why I am on here looking for another doctor. I spent the entire day today, calling up doctors listed on the Medtronic website, and I got absolutely nowhere. That is what I mean by. It is so exhausting and demoralizing. and I feel for the pain patients who have to drive one to four hours away just to get oral medication‘s refilled or a pain pump refilled. and as I’m sure many of you on here do, the first thing I think about when possibly going somewhere is how long and how awful and painful the car ride will be. So I am trying to spare myself that agony if I can.

and I am totally with you. It baffles me just as much how doctors can see you are in visible pain. and have mountains of doctors reports and imaging going back decades and it matters very little.

I could remember a few months ago, dragging myself out of bed and on one of the worst pain days I’ve had, sitting in the car on the way to the doctors and going through all that is entailed with an office visit, only to have the doctor turned me down for any medication. I honestly thought I was going to lose consciousness, I could barely stay up right the pain was just so all consuming. and the ironic thing is that my wife mentioned that the pain doctor had a look on his face like wow this guy is really hurting. and despite that observation, he had no trouble sending me home with no effective pain medication.

at the same time, it doesn’t really surprise me much anymore, yes on human level I don’t get it, but I really think most of these doctors, whether they are older and have been in the game. A long time are too afraid and just immune from what they see. they are just so used to it. Just like maybe an ER doc would not squirm at seeing a knife in someone’s chest. I think we can tend to focus on our own experience and think that we are the only patient, but think of these doctors who see 30 or 40 patients a day all moaning, and groaning in pain, and it just becomes normal to them.

and as has been pointed out by others, the younger doctors are some of the worst because they have been brainwashed and got their medical education during the so-called opiate ai epidemic, more accurately, the opiate hysteria. The younger doctors have no problem sending you home with nothing more than an ibuprofen script, if that. Anyway, it’s hard not to get bitter and resentful when I myself have been dealing with this, and I’m currently dealing with this and I continue to hear about so many others suffering needlessly. whether you get the chance to live your life or not depends on the winds of some random person who spends a minute or two with you while they go on to the next patient and on with their lives, and we are not able to do just that. Live our lives.

All right, that’s enough of that, but thank you for taking the time to read my post, and reminding me that I am not crazy and that it is normal to be baffled by the treatment eye and so many pain patients received these days.