I believe it was the Young Geezer who said he has a young doctor... I do too. My doctor is about my age and she told me she was shocked at how honest I was being but really appreciated it because it better helped her to understand what I'm going through and what I need. I would advise getting a younger doctor and kind of feel them out before divulging any information.
Indeed, I found out with docs that the generational gap is extremely important, also having had doctors (old and young) as teachers due to my career (which I graduated and after a few months of practising I left it for producing web pages,live streamings and AM radio shows for stock exchange - broker fellas, cuz I couldn't stand the asshole at the medical field, but that's another story) I'm 26 and my doc (who's my GP and knows I relapsed on opioids and is gonna put me on bupe) is less than 40 and my psychoanalist is 29 and just started his practice, he charges very little he has long hair listens to Scandinavian Death Metal and plays bass in a band and he tells me about their upcoming gigs, and his practice is a tiny room with a laptop and one big speaker some books chairs and a table, still he's being great so far.
As far as my doc goes he's been my doc for the past 5years since I quit my daily IV opioid habit, so it's in my records I went to rehab for being a Junkie, and he knew I abused benzosin the past, still I'm scripted a hell of a lot of clonazepam and zolpidem and lyrica, cause I don't abuse them.....if I wanted to abuse benzos (which sometimes I do) I do the work myself, I'm not gonna jeopardize my doc and my scripts, which took me so long to get, I would get a seizure as well if I were to be withdrawn from my daily dose of clonazepam.
But generally Doctors who have started their practice-graduated a while ago tend to be much more open and less of that sort of ¨I've seen and known everything about Junkies like YOU in my 30 years working in ths field, when you weren't even born, so listen to me you junkie and don't try to give me a lesson I should be giving you a lesson smartass punk junie....¨ attitude I generally got from other docs.
There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but this is my general experience....InMyLyricalMind (cool nick) it's great you're about the same age as your doc, I think that's the way it should be I can tell it with my psychoanalist who's 3years older than me but that's the same age difference I have with my sister or had with my sorta ex-gf (slowly getting back tigether) for 3yrs, so it's lik we connect on a level where there is no generational gap and you feel so much more comfortable that the honesty is like that comes from within, sometimes I'm so naive I end up telling things I regret later, but on hindsight they were right most of the time.....so yeah I'd say try and fel them up and look for the generational gap thing, though if you're searching for the most prestigious doc in pain managment he'll prolly be more than 60, which sucks (or might not) and also this doesn't means all young dics are cool, but I think since they must have had friends or heard of friends of friends of friends having the same problems (snorting OC's in the suburbs for ex) they don't tend to be as shocked and try to empathize, and make you feel good about yourself again, minimizing the use (naltrexone and bupe), maximizing your quality of life, what a doc should do whilst the older docs with loads of patients will make you feel guilty for your past drug use that when you bring in present drug use you're in for a whipping and sometimes even treats to be instituzonialized cause in their opinoin I was putting my life at risk taking opioids like hydro codeine and tramadol and not even on a daily basis.....with my doc we agreed it's in my best interest to get me into bupe ASAP, but he's on vacation til the en of feb =( I miss my doc......an LyricalMind you're spot on on the clonazepam thing....lol that reminds me it's time for my afternoon 2mg clonazepam 300mg lyrica dose, it's past 5pm already....