Me again....
I've posted here before about my recent diagnosis of ax spa and the ongoing issues with the GP (been moved to a lady GP now which is better - is still like to move to another practise tho).
I ended up getting help from the local NHS CCG regarding the GP issues. Senior CCG person assured me once I got in under the care of the local hospital services (rheumatology and pain management) things would be great and that they were organised and really useful.
Had my first appointment with NHS Pain Management consultant Friday.
New lady GP had promised Pain Management would be able to help with all the higher level NSAIDS that GPs can't prescribe. She had said beyond the standard NSAIDs they were not comfortable handing them out because they didn't know enough about them.
Not so. First consultant said she had nothing to offer me. When I showed her the hospitals website which has a page for pain management services and a list of all the things they offer (drugs, specialist physio wtc etc), she went and got her manager.
Enter consultant no 2. He said they didn't do anything like what is listed on the hospital website. They don't offer or refer to physio etc.
The first consultant then said they wouldn't prescribe anything to me because "In the UK all drugs come via the GP".
I then showed them both the NICE and BNF website which shows all the high level NSAIDs which are Consultant prescription only and that the GP absolutely cannot hand out.
They both shook their heads and said "we don't do that"
Total waste of time. Two people who cost more than £1m to train occupying an entire section with own waiting area, nurses etc but they don't actually do anything.
I've waited months for that. I'm in so much pain and barely clinging on. I can't recall ever having been more demoralised. What a depressing state of affairs!
Anyone else seen Pain Management? Any good experiences? Keen to know what they're supposed to do.
As I was leaving consultant no 1 asked me when I'd like to come back. Wtf?! Come back for what? More of "we don't do that"?
I'd taken an entire morning off work for this and missed an important meeting.
Afterwards I rang the Gp and left a message for the new GP. She rang me back. Her words were that the pain management people are the pill pushers of the NHS! Handing out pain meds is their entire reason for existing! She was planning to email to find out what they were intending on doing to remedy the situation. She couldn't quite believe it either. She had specifically told me that they could hand out all the things she could not do.
It's a joke. It's just not very funny.
I'm in immense amounts of pain without any decent or effective pain/ anti inflammatory relief.
Things have progressed again. I now have pain in my feet and 4 swollen painful sausage toes making it really hard to walk.
I have pain in my jaw making it hard to open my mouth properly and chewing hurts.
And that's on top of the existing hip pain and knee pain. I have some pain in my SI joints and my bottom but the SI pain is manageable with ibuprofen mostly. The rest, codiene doesn't touch it.
The worst is every medical professional I've seen keeps banging on about my back pain. I've told them all a million times, I've emailed them all. I do not have back pain. None at all. But my hips hurt so much I spent 3 hours sobbing last night and 2 hours crying this evening.
They hurt when I walk, sit or lay down. There is no way of stopping it.
Christmas was awful and I was clinging on for these pain management people.
I'm ready to give up.