I have read over the site and I appreciate all of the input from the persons who posts. I feel better about taking Fentanyl Patches now since reading information on this site and other different sites and also having medical professionals to talk to about them. I am switching over from Norco and for breakthrough pain Percocet to Fentanyl Patches. I am a senior citizen who has been very sensitive to medications and now have a very serious condition over which I felt I had no control over the pain and I could sense my ability to function as a highly functional person in my business, church and friends groups and family slipping away due to coping with what specialists have told me that I am blessed to be able to function as well as I do.
It can get frightening when a person like myself who has never taken strong pain medication until a few years back and then have to navigate all the information, the health-care system, Medicare and all the disinformation that is out there. I have only had three family physicians in my whole life and I really appreciate being able to be upfront with them and I am so appreciative of their being supportive of me. I have noticed something that was stressful and frightening to me in the last few years since having major surgery that was only to give me a little longer space of quality time that I noticed so many younger persons a third to a half my age and now we all have to go every month and sometimes twice per month and use the pee cup.
I supposed I had been dealt a blow to understanding and attempting to understand why some people were complaining of physicians, drug stores, etc about being talked down to like you were a drug addict. When someone who was a teeny-bopper that I was old enough to be their grandpa, but still look good for my age, began treating me and talking down to me as well as some of the Nurse-Practitioners that are being brought in from other countries who think they are three steps above God, I go to the two physicians whom they report to and explain to them in a firm but a nice professional manner and way (if possible) how I want to be treated emotionally as well as physically.
Usually and so far, it seems these younger people with a few months medical training who have never had to deal with a disease that can take your life combined with attempting to deal with the FDA rules and regulations, I seem to reach a more thankful interaction with the whole system of calling the drug store because one cannot show their computer records, keeping a record of medications taken and ensuring they are taken correctly, getting to the physicians' office, 80 percent of the time getting a triage person who is a wonderful person who "knows me thank God" but 20 percent of the time, getting someone I have never seen and they treat some of the older patients like me who look younger than half the patient population sitting out in their waiting rooms like I was a drug-seeker.
Experienced the same again with the NP's, 80/20, (high turnover rate there) some of these persons are made of gold, (great and professional personalities but some made of nonprofessional "how in the world did they get a job there." I sought out a younger counselor in our community to talk about some of these issues because of all the rules and regulations and I would rate him very highly just as my professional friends rate him highly. ( I am talking about persons like me who started their own businesses, put their children through medical school, still have a thriving business and health-care in the United States needs to be treated more than just a football kicked between the Greedy Right Wing People who you find out later they are on drugs after passing laws to make medications difficult for older Americans to get when they need it and these politicians left and right act as if health care is something that if you are really good, you will die and go to heaven if you vote for their positions with their pictures of their families when I know personally some that break every rule they pass.
I don't think my younger counselor could grasp what I was attempting to tell him about all the stress of dealing with disease, old-age, medications, medical persons-some professionals and then attempting to conform to all the rules, regulations, scare tactics regarding pain meds. But, then I am a strong individual, highly educated and can force myself to not only look from my point of view but see the big picture of the new world that I find myself in, knowing I have a limited time on earth and I used to volunteer through a non-profit as a counselor and these younger persons can walk down the street, (or so many have told me) and get any kind of pain medication they want cheaper than Medicare charges me.
These younger people get free counseling, free meds and they are a third to half my age, got hooked on pain meds and even though I have a heart as big as Texas for them, I wonder if the middle men and women, understand that all of these programs for the younger persons with rules changing all the time really stress out an older person who attempts to go by the rules and law and has never abused substances and scared to death to even attempt to take come medications because of my volunteer work and seeing young lives snuffed out and wondering if there was more than could have been done. Man, if I can use a street language sentence here at the last, Old Age is not for sissies and this balancing act of trying to stay out of pain and all the emphasis is on younger people with most of the emphasis of passing stricter laws, putting them in private prisons and treating us older people is one hell of a balancing act to manage.
It can get frightening when a person like myself who has never taken strong pain medication until a few years back and then have to navigate all the information, the health-care system, Medicare and all the disinformation that is out there. I have only had three family physicians in my whole life and I really appreciate being able to be upfront with them and I am so appreciative of their being supportive of me. I have noticed something that was stressful and frightening to me in the last few years since having major surgery that was only to give me a little longer space of quality time that I noticed so many younger persons a third to a half my age and now we all have to go every month and sometimes twice per month and use the pee cup.
I supposed I had been dealt a blow to understanding and attempting to understand why some people were complaining of physicians, drug stores, etc about being talked down to like you were a drug addict. When someone who was a teeny-bopper that I was old enough to be their grandpa, but still look good for my age, began treating me and talking down to me as well as some of the Nurse-Practitioners that are being brought in from other countries who think they are three steps above God, I go to the two physicians whom they report to and explain to them in a firm but a nice professional manner and way (if possible) how I want to be treated emotionally as well as physically.
Usually and so far, it seems these younger people with a few months medical training who have never had to deal with a disease that can take your life combined with attempting to deal with the FDA rules and regulations, I seem to reach a more thankful interaction with the whole system of calling the drug store because one cannot show their computer records, keeping a record of medications taken and ensuring they are taken correctly, getting to the physicians' office, 80 percent of the time getting a triage person who is a wonderful person who "knows me thank God" but 20 percent of the time, getting someone I have never seen and they treat some of the older patients like me who look younger than half the patient population sitting out in their waiting rooms like I was a drug-seeker.
Experienced the same again with the NP's, 80/20, (high turnover rate there) some of these persons are made of gold, (great and professional personalities but some made of nonprofessional "how in the world did they get a job there." I sought out a younger counselor in our community to talk about some of these issues because of all the rules and regulations and I would rate him very highly just as my professional friends rate him highly. ( I am talking about persons like me who started their own businesses, put their children through medical school, still have a thriving business and health-care in the United States needs to be treated more than just a football kicked between the Greedy Right Wing People who you find out later they are on drugs after passing laws to make medications difficult for older Americans to get when they need it and these politicians left and right act as if health care is something that if you are really good, you will die and go to heaven if you vote for their positions with their pictures of their families when I know personally some that break every rule they pass.
I don't think my younger counselor could grasp what I was attempting to tell him about all the stress of dealing with disease, old-age, medications, medical persons-some professionals and then attempting to conform to all the rules, regulations, scare tactics regarding pain meds. But, then I am a strong individual, highly educated and can force myself to not only look from my point of view but see the big picture of the new world that I find myself in, knowing I have a limited time on earth and I used to volunteer through a non-profit as a counselor and these younger persons can walk down the street, (or so many have told me) and get any kind of pain medication they want cheaper than Medicare charges me.
These younger people get free counseling, free meds and they are a third to half my age, got hooked on pain meds and even though I have a heart as big as Texas for them, I wonder if the middle men and women, understand that all of these programs for the younger persons with rules changing all the time really stress out an older person who attempts to go by the rules and law and has never abused substances and scared to death to even attempt to take come medications because of my volunteer work and seeing young lives snuffed out and wondering if there was more than could have been done. Man, if I can use a street language sentence here at the last, Old Age is not for sissies and this balancing act of trying to stay out of pain and all the emphasis is on younger people with most of the emphasis of passing stricter laws, putting them in private prisons and treating us older people is one hell of a balancing act to manage.
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