Wednesday, June 27, 2012

2nd appointment with pain management doctor!

My 2nd appointment with the pain management doctor Monday went great! It was a quick visit which is always nice.

As I was waiting to be called back, a lady dressed as the statue of liberty came in...apparently she was from a physical therapy company and was bringing info to this doctor's office, but I'm still not sure why she was dressed like that. It was funny though! The lady in front of her to check in said, "introducing your next patient, the statue of liberty!" It was really awkward but funny to watch. So that was exciting!

I was called back really quickly. There is a main doctor, and then two PAs that work there. The first visit I saw a PA and the main doctor. But for follow up visits they just randomly assign one doctor to see you unless you request to see a certain doctor. On Monday I got the main doctor which was good!

Since the extended release medicine that they first put me on wasn't really helping and causing more side effects, they put me on a different one. I felt bad saying that it wasn't really helping because it was a strong medicine (morphine). But they said it's not a big deal, and I shouldn't feel bad. That's why they have different medicines. Not every medicine works for every one. So they switched me to an extended release that's a little stronger than the one I was on.

They left the breakthrough medicine the same since that still works well. Hopefully this new medicine will work better so that I don't have to take as much breakthrough medicine!

The pharmacy we use has been out of the medicines I need for the past 3 times. And it's not like they're uncommon medicines. So on Monday after I left the doctor I went to drop off the new prescription. I got there and they said they didn't have that medicine. Of course. They said the medicine is a new one, but they also just reformulated the medicine so they didn't have the new one. So I asked if he would call and see who had it. Two out of the three pharmacys around were out. The one that had it was on the other side of town, and it took about 30 minutes to get there. Once there, they told me it would take an hour for the medicine to be ready. At the pharmacy we usually use, the wait is never over 30 minutes.

So I had no choice but to wait for the medicine because it was far from our house and it wouldn't be worth having to come back that night. It was actually really close to where we used to live. It was so busy around there so I decided to go to Sonic to get a drink and hang out there till the medicine was ready.

I headed back to the pharmacy after an hour, but they were super busy and I still had to wait 30 more minutes in line. The doctor gave me a coupon for the medicine and we are so thankful he did. I guess since it's a newer medicine there's no generic so it's really expensive. For a month's supply it was $112 dollars! Wow. I wasn't sure if the coupon would actually work because a lot of times there's a catch to it. But all I had to do was activate the card which only took 10 minutes, and then it worked! All we had to pay was $15. Thank you to the best doctors in the world!

The doctor's appointment only took 45 minutes, and then it took 2 and a half hours to get the medicine. It was crazy and frustrating, but everything is good now and we're so thankful for the coupon for the medicine. We can also use it up to 12 times! I didn't even know something like that existed and actually worked.

I go back to the pain management doctor in a few weeks again to see how things are going. They said that we can call 24 hours a day if we really need something! I'm so thankful for them!

2 comments:

  1. Excellent news! And yay for the coupon!

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  2. So great that you got that coupon! And yeah don't feel bad if one doesn't work.. it's not your fault! And they want to help you!

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