Thursday, February 13, 2014

Seeing the Rheumatologist Tomorrow

I see the rheumatologist tomorrow.  I'm anxious about it.  I'm worried she's not going to listen to me (and I found numerous reviews of her online, where prior patients complained that she doesn't listen) and that she won't want to prescribe adequate pain medication.  My primary care physician doesn't want to keep treating my pain, but right now I don't even have a diagnosis, so who knows if it's something the rheumatologist would treat.  I mean, if she thinks it's fibromyalgia then she would treat that, but what if that's not the diagnosis? 

And what about my back?  I don't think my back problems are caused by fibromyalgia, even if I do have fibro.  The back pain is due to degenerative disk disease and/or a herniated disk, depending on which back specialist you think is right, and that's not the kind of thing rheumatologists treat. 

So I'm worried that I'm not going to get adequate pain medication.  The medication I have currently is just barely adequate.  But I will run out of it over the coming weekend and if the rheumatologist doesn't prescribe more, I'm not sure how I'm going to cope.  I'm trying not to panic about it now, to wait and see what happens, because anxiety only  makes the pain worse and there's no sense making it worse now when I don't even know that's going to happen.  But it's hard not to worry.

2 comments:

  1. see a pain management specialist. I have back pain due to several reasons as well as neck, knee and hip pain. He prescribes me my meds for pain, muscle relaxers etc. He's very well certified and not a pill mill.

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  2. what ever happened to that other doctor who you read about online? did that option fall through?

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