The purpose of this post is not to ask questions about where to go. I want to know if there are other addicts with chronic illness/pain who have either been treated very bad, labeled a seeker or blacklisted from an (or multiple) hospitals. I have been an addict for 18 years. I have a chronic and painful condition that becomes acute at times and needs medical attention. I have been treated really bad. At times I am sent home writhing in pain. Anyone else get treated really bad?
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NSADD Moderators: tryptakid
Drug Seeking at the ER
- Thread starter MissBoo
- Start date
sekio
Bluelight Crew
What condition do you have and what do you mean by "needs medical attention"? How does your typical visit go?
Now, I'm not saying you do this, but I do know that when you show up at an ER with the intent of just getting opioids and opioids alone, and insist that nothing else works, it kind of fits the textbook definition of a drug seeker, and it throws up red flags. This is in part due to the fact that opiates alone with no combination NSAID/acetaminophen to back them up are actually crap painkillers. [ref] 15mg of oxycodone orally is worse as a painkiller than 5mg oxy plus 500mg acetaminophen.
On top of that, the doctors really don't like it if your condition presents with nothing visible to examination externally or even on X-ray/ultrasound. Or if you get your painkillers and then bail. Or anyone who throws a tantrum, starts threatening the staff, or makes a huge scene about their intense 11/10 pain.
Most doctors aren't purposefully mean for no reason, there's gotta be at least a few red flags you've raised before to earn you such a reputation.
To jump on the back of this: If you have a chronic pain condition, it is likely that you need ongoing care from a physician who knows your history and is able to identify a treatment plan that is ultimately safe, but also involves the potential for improvement. EDs are stop-gaps, and are not very good at offering primary care. The high volume of patients, variety of conditions, and difficulty with continuing to follow a patient makes it incredibly difficult to offer comprehensive care. As OP mentioned, they are suffering from a chronic painful condition. Seeking care in an emergency setting is the exact opposite of what is going to be the most helpful.
Many providers are willing to work with active substance users, as long as there is information being shared between the patient and the provider. Being suspicious is likely a result of behaviors that raise suspicion. Attempting to access pain medications at multiple hospitals is a way to do just that. While it's probably not what you want in this very moment, you'll really benefit from building an honest and communicative relationship with the same provider, and discussing your pain and chemical dependence in an honest way.
THE_REAL_OBLIVION
Bluelight Crew
I've been in that position, and am only on that godforsaken suboxone because of not being taken seriously, and because of the ex prime minister of Ontario who went on her anti Oxycontin crusade which created a 6 month where my only pharms guy, didnt have it, and also suddenly didn't have any Oxy IR/Supeudol/generic simply "Oxycodone" 20mg tablets (the highest they get to here in Canada) but also I didn't help myself, I had proofs from my neurologist I could have mailed to me, from my maxilofacial dentist regarding my really messed up left TMJ articulation and his treatment with opioids (weak, CodeineContin 200mg x2 a day + one to 2 max Percodans, well Oxycodans, the generics, for breakthrough pain). As he was unwilling to perform surgery saying it was too dangerous.
One ER out of 3, thankfully not the one close to mine, where when in withdrawal went and asked for help, she put me on a blacklist (that ER doctor) with a 3 week script of promethazine pills, 50mg and that was it. The next time I went there, I knew I could always walk with one month of Empracets (Codeine 30mg/APAP 300mg), with a dose of 6 pills max a day, but that one time the doctor after saying, sure no problem, you're not asking me for hydromorphone, then he comes back with an angry face, "you're an addict" scripted a useless naproxen 375mg bid script and I told him that the previous doctor (who had left the hospital and the whole region that she didn't understand at all what I told her the previous time but it didn't change anything. Until 3-4 years later when privacy laws shred away some records like ER visits that were of no importance and everything was back to normal. But by then I was so tired of looking for another specialist of the jaw (maxilofacial surgeon dentist) that I just said fuck it, and started shooting up Dilaudid until I had no more money and owed a bunch (and he can go fuck himself, he was making up debts in his unreadable "log", told him to use his goddamn computer other than for fucking gay porn) Anyway the old fart can die I don't care. All this to say, after I had a very big scarred hand where I would always be able to register, always had problems registering elsewhere, I walked to the ORT clinic and thought, well, a lowish dose of methadone will kill the pain and I'll be able to get back to regular life. Well no, it took a long time, the 90 days of going to the pharmacy, everyday, with the crazy winters we have here, and that one was particularly crazy.
An angel had a car to drive me there, because not every pharmacy does the "methadone" program, you can get Suboxone anywhere, but not Methadone in the liquid form mixed in orange juice pre-made the night before you arrive. And then did so for the 6 days, 5 days etc.
I can't and no one else can't really help you much more than that. If you have documented painful conditions, you could take a greyhound bus and just move somewhere else not too far, but outside the hospitals you see normally...here they work together in regions so, you could do that, get all your documented doctor papers, mri, cat, x-ray scans, blood works, previous prescriptions bottles ( I never threw what I knew mattered away, even antibiotic bottles, as some of the nastiest, which I refuse to take, fluoroquinolones, can cause bad side effects even when you're done taking them, and they make you feel awful, also some proof that they dislodge benzos from the benzo gaba complex sites...no wonder they're shitty antibiotics most people detest. As for myself, the cycloposporins (Cefprozil, cefazolin) etc. are the best ones, a lung doctor saved me from the shit antibiotics the ER gave me twice, first one turns out I'm allergic to, Biaxin XL (not allergic to penicilin), but well, the field of antibiotics is one of the most complicated, that and the anti-virals. I actually was prescribed once a weeks worth of Tamiflu, was still on my mom's insurance then, it kinda worked, making the flu not as bad, but no smoking weed on that stuff, hell no, it was like being thrown into a delerium. So I stuck to the huge codeine syrup bottle (30mg/5ml) pure because canadians know how to make syrup and it went away, but I was in really bad shape, I got off the bus I remember from college and I had 39.4C fever and spat extremely green shit, was brought to the back right away, they performed the painful as fuck influenza test, but they released me that night with the tamiflu, the codeine syrup and some cyclobenzaprine as I had my muscles in knots.
Unless you meet only psychopaths in the medical field, you will get help. Sometimes the patient is right to be exasperated, but as I changed my outlook, and in 4 months I will be moved to the pain clinic where I'll be given 60mg generic oxycontin due to my perfect record over the years at the ORT clinic (the few times there was weed in me, they didn't care at all, I barely toke at all, I prefer to eat some Cesamets 1mg when I can grab some :D.
If you don't have any more need for information I will close this thread tomorrow, if you need more info you can PM me.I have severe gastroparesis which causes profuse vomiting and at times severe pain. I also have cyclic vomiting syndrome. I get dehydrated really bad to the point i can barely walk. The vomiting gets really bad. Before i go to the er i take all my meds for my stomach and try to rehydrate myself. When i get there i make sure they are aware i am a recovering addict on methadone. I have never asked for pain meds cause i am scared too but i am still treated really bad. I use the same hospital and only go when directed by my gi doc. Even tho i dont ask for pain meds i tell them i am hurting and theg ignore it. They can give me toradol for pain but dont. I am basically ignored. There have been times 3 times actually i should have been admitted because of how severe the dehydration was. I literally kept losing consciousness in the room. I could barely walk i was dizzy and nauseous. My doc was pissed off cause i was basically told i had the flu (when it was cvs) and streeted. I have zero faith in the medical field and will never step foot into yhe er unless i am dying
THE_REAL_OBLIVION
Bluelight Crew
I'm not familiar with gastroparesis, but it looks like it has half the halmarks of gastroenteritis (it only goes out one way for you). Don't you have a script for Ondansetron? Or only get it IV at the hospital? In the worst of cases, you can buy Ondansetron without a script, but I can't tell you where. With such a specific disease, it's ridiculous you aren't scripted Ondansetron, Cesamet or simply weed (if you can, I hope you don't live in 15 or so states in the US without medical weed, that Texas to North Dakota line is the worst).
ORT docs here tell us to mention we are on Suboxone or Methadone...as if you take methadone, they will up the dosage temporarily, as it is a good painkiller itself, and when on Suboxone, if you get hurt real bad or have other painful situations (a skin infection in the worst place, look up pilonidal sinus on wikipedia, at your own risk, a male only, never-asian problem (which explains the first time 16 years ago that area got red and kinda infected but did not burst into a sea of blood and pus, the Vietnamese doc was confused and kinda amused...he asked me why I had sweaty buttocks, I had been sitting 16 hours in the ER, thankfully a friend came by and it made it much easier, the kind of friend with who I can talk and talk forever, but it was hard to sit this whole time, spent most of the time smoking prefab joints outside. So he just gave me Empracets (30mg codeine/300mg APAP) x 30 with 1 refill and told me to buy some advil, could have given me a script for the 600mg ibuprofens, I would have taken half of 'em and my mom's insurance would have paid. It was summer in a ER room that was the same it was in the 70's, in the middle of summer 2001 (before life turned to shit for half the planet) so being asked why my ass is moist after sitting in an non-air conditioned waiting room for 16 hours, literally until there was nobody in the waiting room at 3:30 am, I wish I could have bitchslapped him. So 14 years later when it re-infected and burst into what I said...the ORT clinic allowed the Abstrals (sublingual fentanyl pills). The ORT doc when I switched to Suboxone said it was really important and to tell any doctor who was going to script me something else than Fentanyl that works rapidly (not the patches), that it was completely useless for somebody on Suboxone, and she's damn right.
>zero faith in the American health system
I wouldn't have much too, Although it depends on where you live, it could get better, Trump was a Democrat all his life (or when convenient, he's all about that) and then suddenly only became Republican to challenge other Republicans out, so I at least think he will do good things socially. Killing the TPP and attempting to kill the TPIP is a good step, while in Canada we might regress with that CESA thing with Europe. But at least no TPP is great, we were part of that.Last edited:
Pembroke
Bluelighter
I deal with this situation, though fortunately not terribly frequently anymore. I am on opioids for pain every day to treat RSD/CRPS - it's a leftover from an injury I incurred almost a decade ago. I bled out entirely and developed rhabdomyolosis and compartment syndrome, and the resulting nerve and tissue damage still causes me problems to this day.
At at the same time that occurred, I had a large vascular graft placed. It spasms from time to time, and when it does I sometimes end up in the ER. Very few doctors understand the mechanism of the graft or understand how and why it spasms as it does. I've taken to only going to one ER, even though it's 30 miles away and I pass two other hospitals en route, and even then I try to only go when there is one specific doctor on staff. She's an AMAZING doctor. She's so good that I seek her out even though the first time I met her, she accused me of lying about my injuries (in spite of massive scarring all over my body) and suggested I had gone "all in" on such an insane story that doctors would be afraid to challenge me. After insisting I was fine, drug seeking, and in withdrawal, I finally got my records to her and she got my labs back... I spent the next six days in the hospital, four of them in the ICU. During that time, I wrote her this letter, like 10 pages long, that included some articles about my graft (only a handful of us exist, so I've been studied extensively) and scolded her about the fact that the way she'd treated me is EXACTLY why so many people stay home and die rather than go to the ER and risk being treated like shit. I'd been home for 2 days when she called me and personally apologized for how she treated me. A few days later, she called me again to see where she could learn more about what makes these grafts spasm and why you can't see them on most imaging, part of the invisible graft phenomenon with any Dacron-fabricated, bifurcated grafts. She now advocates for the empathetic treatment of chronic pain patients in crises - because for a chronic pain patient to be in the ER, they are experiencing something more than the pain they live with daily, or they wouldn't be there. So she went from my mortal enemy to a great advocate. It doesn't always work out that way, but I was really fortunate to find this amazing doctor.