When I first met my husband, I got very, very ill. High fever, soaking wet bed from sweating, very sore throat, couldn't even move....docs could only come up with "mutated strain of mono". When we got married, started having problems with cervical spine. THe doc I saw then said I had DDD of cervical spine, handed me vicodin and sent me out the door. I went to a chiropractor, then started having horrific issues with my sacrum. When I got pregnant, I got a strange rash on my face and arms....then it felt like my sacrum was splitting in two....docs didn't know anything bout the rash, and said he'd look into the sacrum after the baby came....his idea of looking into it was xray, which was fine. 4 months after baby number one, my right knee swelled up 3 times its' size, went to ER to rule out blood clot....was told by my doc I was out of shape!!! I weighed 130...yes, just had a baby, but in better shape than most.

Then we moved to where we are now...I wrote down all my symptoms that I had in all the years, and my new primary knew within minutes of talking to me it was fibro and MCTD. I saw a rheumi at first, but with some of the meds I had to take, I had to go out for a new script every month...hard with two kids in tow...so I asked my primary if he could just write them for me, and he agreed. SO yes, I do see a primary for my meds as of now.

As far as what I believe is really going on is Lyme disease....20 years now....tomorrow I will be calling a LLMD in PA. I'm scared to death, as my pain levels are so high as it is, and I guess when you start treatment for lyme you herx (get really bad )....I don't know if I can handle much more pain. So I am hoping the LLMD might be able to help with that. WE'll see.

and it is so true, they are so quick to offer female patients antidepressants than pain meds...they all want to put me on cymbalta, or paxil, or what ever else there is....I had a horrible time coming off cymbalta and only took it for a month...highly recomend against that one. I wouldn't be so damn depressed if I could get some good help with the pain....duh!

I am constructing a letter to congress to get off the backs of sick people and focus on the fact that drug addiction is a disease unto itself and that the only way to fight a war on drugs is to fight the disease and therefore acknowledge that people with addiction need treatment, not imprisonment. And, sick people, don't need to have to get a stupid script filled every month for a medication that I'm obviously going to get monthly. It's ridiculous to think that if you prevent a doctor from putting refills on a script that you're stopping a drug offender. Oooooo, good job gubment!

I'm not even sure a letter would do much good and am wondering if any of you have any ideas on something that could be more effective like an online petition that would be taken seriously.

Not sure if I posted this bfore but, my friends DH is an ENT and in his medical journal thingy he gets every month or so, it had an article about opiates, and how too many docs are UNDER using them, and that people like us are suffering needlessly. I can only hope all the docs get stuff like this. But then again, you have the government putting thier two cents in, and not letting the docs do what they feel they need to do.

Yeah, the monthly appts to get my script for oxy filled is a waste of time and money...

get this one...I will not ever go to a walgreen's pharmacy again...this happened 3 years ago...before my fibro and MCTD dx I think. My regular doc wasn't in, so I saw a different one in the same office....he gave me ultracet.... (crap...don't think it's even narcotic).....I had an automatic refil on that, then I saw my regular doc and he gave me regular ultram....so I take the script to walgreens, tell them...cancel the automatic refil on the ultracet, I don't need it, fill this one instead please. Those a-holes wouldn't fill it, called my doc, said I was a drug seeker. I called my docs office and they said walgreens does that crap all the time, and laughed it off....they said honey, we know you are not a drug seeker...i was so upset over this...I mean #1, if I was a drug seeker, I would have had them fill the ultracet, and taken the written script to a different pharm. duh! I called them and went off on them.

So now I use a small town pharmacy, since I take the oxy, and they are very nice to me.

Here's a question for you...I had run out of pills early once, and know I didn't take extra...so next time I counted them after I got them filled...I was shorted.... now what do you do there! are they going to believe you on that one....It's happend several times, one or two here and there....

I just think the governmetn needs to stay out of this all together....that's what's wrong with medical care, the docs have so many other things to worry about, that they can't take care of their patient they way the feel they need to. It's a shame. I'm ready to move countries...seriously...I have said this for years now

Not sure if I posted this bfore but, my friends DH is an ENT and in his medical journal thingy he gets every month or so, it had an article about opiates, and how too many docs are UNDER using them, and that people like us are suffering needlessly. I can only hope all the docs get stuff like this. But then again, you have the government putting thier two cents in, and not letting the docs do what they feel they need to do.

Yeah, the monthly appts to get my script for oxy filled is a waste of time and money...

get this one...I will not ever go to a walgreen's pharmacy again...this happened 3 years ago...before my fibro and MCTD dx I think. My regular doc wasn't in, so I saw a different one in the same office....he gave me ultracet.... (crap...don't think it's even narcotic).....I had an automatic refil on that, then I saw my regular doc and he gave me regular ultram....so I take the script to walgreens, tell them...cancel the automatic refil on the ultracet, I don't need it, fill this one instead please. Those a-holes wouldn't fill it, called my doc, said I was a drug seeker. I called my docs office and they said walgreens does that crap all the time, and laughed it off....they said honey, we know you are not a drug seeker...i was so upset over this...I mean #1, if I was a drug seeker, I would have had them fill the ultracet, and taken the written script to a different pharm. duh! I called them and went off on them.

So now I use a small town pharmacy, since I take the oxy, and they are very nice to me.

Here's a question for you...I had run out of pills early once, and know I didn't take extra...so next time I counted them after I got them filled...I was shorted.... now what do you do there! are they going to believe you on that one....It's happend several times, one or two here and there....

I just think the governmetn needs to stay out of this all together....that's what's wrong with medical care, the docs have so many other things to worry about, that they can't take care of their patient they way the feel they need to. It's a shame. I'm ready to move countries...seriously...I have said this for years now

You know, the issue for me is that we're talking about "Prescription" medication. Something that has been prescribed by a medical professional with a license that took them years to obtain and someone that is working with their patient in order to help them cope with daily pain. Do people abuse this? Yes. But we're talking about people that have two or three different doctors and two or three different pharmacies where one they might use their insurance while on the others they use cash. It's no secret that people are doing this and it's the reason why the government feels it has a right to impose on us truly ill people who are simply following our doctor's orders and doing it legally.

I really think legislation needs to focus on addiction as a disease as I've said over and over and I'm sorry for the repetition, but I really think the key is awareness. If Congress and Senators would simply watch some of the informative documentaries on drug addiction they would see that the problem isn't in the way drugs are handed out and prescribed but the way addicts are not being fully treated for their real problems. If we as a society could just stop putting people in jail for being an addict and instead sentence them in hospitals that treat addiction like a disease I think that street drugs and ridiculous abuse of prescription drugs might actually see a decline.

As long as we keep thinking that addicts are people who should be able to just control themselves or that it's their fault and they deserve to be in jail then we'll never get anywhere in society. I also laugh at people who think narcotics should be legal and over the counter. How is that going to help someone who is so addicted to Vicodin that they can't help but take more than 100 a day like some people apparently do.

So that's my little soapbox and I am appalled at how pharmacist act whenever they get a sleeping prescription or a narcotic prescription and somehow they've been deputized in being able to treat their customer like a street druggie. At Walmart I actually had a manager provoke me into getting angry with him because he took it upon himself to be condescending and made it a point that whenever I came up to the counter to ALWAYS be the one to service me. When I confronted his boss about it the situation only became worse and he would actually demean me in front of the other customers in line which finally put me over the edge and file a lawsuit against them. Needless to say I have their attention now.

Anyways I could go on about this until the database here crashed, so again I'm sorry about how long winded this reply is. I just get so angry at people who say they are in the business of medicine and evidently hate the people they treat.

Jaime, as far as the short pilling you, I would actually count the pills right there at the counter or have the pharmacist count them in front of you. I also have had this problem and the thing is, these technicians are just store employees with a little more training. I apologize if I offend anyone who is a technician but I was in a relationship with a person a while back who was going to become the Pharmacy Manager for a prominent store chain and she told me the only thing she had to do was get some additional training and she would have the job. On the other hand, the people at CVS have always acted like professionals and have treated me like a valued customer. I am lucky to have found them and it took a while going from pharmacy to pharmacy to find them, but I'm glad I finally did.

Okay, I better stop now. Thank you for letting me rant and I hope that you situations improve since medication for us is vital for our daily living.

Jaime, so much of what you are saying really sounds like LD. I too have been battling the fibro thing for years and it was because I seemed to be getting "progressively worse" as my doc said, that we reinvestigated the lyme (7 yr old infection!!). I'm with ya, Jaime! Hoping to also get help for the ld and in turn the fibro will likely be a little better.

One of the drugs that helps my horrible fatigue is provigil. 200mg is alot--I often break it in half. It not only keeps me awake, but I find I'm in better control of my snacking. I don't take it everyday, though,because I do tend to get a little "manic" if I take it all the time.

I apologize now for any misspellings, etc. I'm heading to bed in a minute. My brain stopped functioning about 10 hrs ago .

I also used the duragesic patch for a several month. Pain control was great for the first day and 1/2 of the patch, but the last 1 1/2 days were hell!! I also could not keep them on--I kept telling doc that I needed to change the patch in a shorter interval, but I did not need to increase the dose. In other words, the goodie ran out before the 3 days were up. Instead he increased the dosage!! Getting off this patch was a true and complete nightmare!!!!!!!It was terrifying!!!!!

I agree about cymbalta. I was taken off lexapro, which was working fine for my major depression, in the hopes that the cymbalta would help with pain. It did not and I was nearly suicidal from depression. (But my grandmother and daddy died a few months apart while I was going off the patch and switched to cymb. That didn't help.)

I take 30 mg of Avinza daily for pain. It is a time-released morphine, I think. I thought it wasn't helping until I took myself off it for a month and quickly learned I was wrong. I think it would actually help alot if the dosage was increased. I haven't asked for an increase, as I have been fighting for Lyme Disease tests/antibiotics at the moment---it is a true shame that I have to choose between pain meds and other treatments because my HMO pits my doc against me!!

What about Neurontin? I started back on it, but there was something I read about it that seemed questionable a while back. My mind is gone--can't recall why I thought I shouldn't take it.

I will never ever go to a pain management dealer (oh, I misspoke) again. I really thought I could have gotten a crack pipe and associated stuff if I'd asked, but he had no idea what to do about helping me prevent pain or alternatives to narcotics. I didn't realize he was a licensed drug dealer. I felt like his sign should have read, "Ray Ray the crack man". I wanted trigger point injections for my myofascial pain--he didn't know there was a difference between tender points (FM) and trigger points (myofascial), so I guess he would have injected my tender points??????? I got out of there and won't be back.

Sorry I went on and on. But thanks for listening.

Definitly, drug addiction needs to be treated as a disease...not by throwing these people in jail.

I alawys thought if all the pharmacies would have interconnecting computers, they'd be able to see who has filled what and where....but after thinking about it, of course, some of these people would, like you said, pay cash...no insurance...and if they did that I suppose they could use a different name too...

But it is a shame how some of us have been treated. I can't believe you are in a lawsuit with a pharm! That's great! How is that going? That will teach them for making us look like scum of life because we are in so much pain.

I've done the provigil...didn't seem to help me at all. I was surprised, I had read great things about it. And now my insurance won't cover it anyhow...even though I don't have a thyroid, and have chronic fatigue from the fibro....they need "more explanation:"

at this time, I don't think my doc would change any of my meds...not sure I'd want to right now anyhow...I am going to a LLMD in PA, so we'll see what he has to say.

I took lexapro too....I had anxiety attacks on it constantly! For no reason at all, just kept getting panic attacks....

It's amamzing how different meds affect all of us so differently....that's another thing some docs have to take into consideration...and not be afraid to "play" around with them until you find one that works.

I agree! My mom also had no response to provigil. I'm usually the one who doesn't get a response but this one made the difference between me falling asleep at the wheel (YIKES!) after working nightshift and not. The lexapro has helped so many of the patients I've seen (I'm not a nurse, but work in labor and delivery at a hospital in the area) and lots of coworkers. But a few have said the same about the anxiety. Sorry it didn't work for you.

You are probably right about not trying to switch any meds while you are getting in to see the LLMD.

Do keep the Avinza in mind as a pain med if you are finding oxy not covering you. I think I will ask doc to bump up the dosage, as mine is the starting one and not quite as good as it could be.

Oh, in case anyone else is reading and wondering, you mentioned insurance not covering provigil---I nearly fainted when I read on the receipt from pharmacy last week that my copay was (for 3 months) $100.00,(that part I knew) but the HMO's portion was more than $650.00!! My Heavens! I don't know about all the rest of you guys, but the drug companies and FDA for that matter are out of control. (I mention FDA because I'm pissed at them regarding Avandia approval, what with the news from yesterday. I've been injured by other drugs they "approved" in the past including Zyprexa which made me diabetic.)

Sorry to go off in another direction.

I'm so excited to hear how the LLMD visit goes for you. Oh, and I didn't mean to intrude on your discussion about disability in another area of the site. sorry.