I'm not looking for drugs, really!

I'm not a good patient. I know this. I have an insanely rare, genetic, congential disorder. It's not curable. It brings along a whole host of secondary conditions, most of them degenerative. I have chronic pain. I'm young enough that joint replacement surgery is a bad idea, I've got enough problems that surgery is it's own problem, and yet my joints are mostly destroyed. But still, finding a doctor shouldn't be this hard.



I stopped seeing doctors regularly about a year and a half ago. I was frustrated, depressed, and they weren't helping, so I just stopped going. Then I got pregnant, and I went to my ob/gyn for that, but wasn't doing anything for my own problems. But now I'm finding that I won't be able to continue to function if I don't take care of my own health, so I'm in the market for a doctor who can help me manage my joint issues, my chronic pain, and whatever else happens to pop up.



I'm finding though that doctors are falling into one of three camps. The first won't see me because I'm too complicated. The second only wants to prescribe the drug du jour, regardless of it's efficacy. The third kind assumes I'm just a drug seeker because I'm in pain and would like to manage that pain.



I don't have unrealistic expectations. I don't expect to be pain free. I haven't been pain free since I was 12, I wouldn't know what it felt like. But I don't think I fit the profile of a drug seeker - I've not taken any prescription drugs in over a year, I voluntarily quit methadone and oxycontin because of the side effects, I've never gone doctor shopping to get more drugs, etc.



Beyond all that, though, my experience is that people who will decide that I'm drug-seeking before ever meeting me demonstrate a worse problem. In my last visit, the doctor informs me the minute I walk in that she doesn't believe in drugs for pain. I'm fine with that, if she can offer me non-pharmacological relief, that's fantastic. She repeats this several times throughout the visit. At the end of it...she writes me out two prescriptions. One is for an extremely mild narcotic, one is for a drug that won't address my real problem and is a drug I've already taken before and had a bad reaction to (and I discussed this with her!) So for all her self-congratulating speech on not using drugs for pain, her only solution is for drugs that won't do anything for me. Great. I paid $495 for that visit. I didn't even bother to fill the prescriptions.



I have an appointment with another doctor on the 13th. Maybe eventually I'll find one. In the meantime, I'll take those prescription forms to the new offices, invite them to call the prescribing doctor, and hope they'll believe that I'm not looking for more pills. I just want help.