Chronic Pain

I have been seeing the same family doctor for 20 years. He has treated my pain with various medications. When oxycontin 20mg wasn't working, he sent me to a pain specialist about 6 months ago.

The pain specialist was a little better but not much. I continued to see my regular doctor every month for other conditions. Every month we talked about how things were going with the pain doctor. Every month I told hiim it was better but I was still in a lot of pain.

During the six months I was seeing the pain doctor every month, I also was seeing my family doctor. Even though my family doctor and the pain doctor were working together on my care, and even though my famiily doctor knew what was being prescribed by the pain specialist, he continued to write me prescriptions for the oxycontin.

Well, I didn't fill them for lots of reasons. Mainly, the insurance wouldn't cover two different types of pain meds and I wasn't about to pay $300 for extra medication.

Last month, I told the pain specialist that I was going to be having rectal surgery the first week of December. She said that because I have been taking narcotics for 20 years, my system has built up a tolerance to pain medication and that I would suffer unbearable pain after the rectal surgery.

So, I decided to fill one of the RX's from my family doctor for the oxy, just for peace of mind. My plan was to put the shelf as an insurance policy so I could survive the post-surgery pain.

The pharmacist said she called my family doctor, and he told her not to fill the RX because I was already being treated by another doctor for pain.

Two days later, I got a letter from my family doctor and another from the pain specialist, both saying that I had been terminated as their patient because I was engaging in inappropriate and illegal behavior!

So now I have no family doctor, no pain specialist, and no pain meds. I found a new doctor but can't get in to see her until December 23.

Since I am in poor health, I could die from the withdrawals that I am about to experience in the next few days when my pain meds are depleted.

My question is this: I still have the unfilled oxy prescriptions that were written by my family doctor. Is it legal for me to fill the prescription my family doctor wrote me so I will not die from withdrawals between now and Decmeber 23 when I see my new doctor?

Kristelyn

I'm sorry for your problems with your docs! This happens to pain patients all too often and for some reason many docs don't explain all the rules to their patients on rx's and all the do's & don'ts. It seems like many have to learn this the hard way and it's not fare at all.

Did you have a signed contract with your prescribing doctors??? if you did? Did they go over this with you??

There are many prescribing laws, rules etc for opiate pain relievers and then some docs have their own rules on top of the govt sanctioned laws & rules too. It's really hard to remember them all and I keep a copy of my own pain contract handy at all times to read over if I have a question or re-read when necessary. I also take a copy of my Health reseme & my pain contract if I have to be seen in the ER so the docs there know exactly what I can and cannot do. My pain clinic offered a series of a 10 week course in pain mgt and went over each of our pain contracts with us to make sure we understood the important rules we were under and why they have them. Not very many other pain patients have this type of class available to them, and unfortunately they find themselves in this position not knowing or understanding why?.

Since your doctors have already told you that filling this rx was wrong, I think you should Not fill or even try to fill this another time. I would try and contact either of them and ask to explain yourself to them and see if you can get an rx to last you to your next apt with your new doc. Normally the standard is that your docs should make sure your covered for around 30 days until you can find a new doc. I'm afraid that if you try to fill the next rx, your going to find yourself in some possible trouble or validate the other two docs suspicions and then in the end make it impossible for you to get another rx from possibly even your new doc.

I really hope you can find something to help you through this time. I'm so sorry that this happened to you. I truely canot imagine facing this situation myself. Good luck and best wishes. I hope this os over soon.

Betty

Very interesting discussion. Good luck to everyone.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Karen Lee Richards,

good conversation between both of you..