I understand working in the ER is a hard and sometimes thankless job, but if you work in one, remember that just because 9 out of ten people in pain coming into an er might be looking for a high, there will be that one that truly needs your help, and though what they feel might be invisible to you, it does not make it fake.

Thank you to all my Dr’s, nurses and PT group who all believed in my pain, and are finally, with the help of a spinal cord stimulator, helping me recover my life.

9 weeks post op
8 weeks with no pain killers!!!

You and those like you are small minded individuals who probably got into medicine for the wrong reason. You need to spend some time with patients that are sick and in pain but can articulate their feelings. Try a pain management clinic, cancer ward or an orthopedic surgeon’s waiting room. They are full of people who can communicate but are probably ill. Do you have any idea how much pain a pinched verve root at C6-C7 can generate? I do. Does it make me inarticulate? No, I am just in pain; my vocal cords work and my engineering training says be specific. Those clinics are rarely open at 1:00am, so where else should I go?

Has it occurred to you that we dislike the way you treat us? Has it occurred to you that you cannot know me or how I react to pain from a 5 to 5 minute consult? Has it occurred to you that as you run back and forth from patient to patient that you miss things, forget things and sometimes get confused as to which patient is which. That is when I have to remind you why I am there and you give me an annoyed look. I am just as annoyed as you are.

I wnet to an ER complaining of facial numbness and problems breathing. My PCP sent me there to get a CAT scan. Oops, I was able to talk and there were no broken bones or visible blood. So I was treated like the non-ER patient: I got the CAT scan, some and they sent me home. The CAT scan, later showed I had had a stroke. But using your logic that diagnosis just couldn’t be possible. I was articulate, conscious with no visible signs of trauma.

Some of the problem is created by you and your kind. At 1:00am (again) the ER is the only healthcare resource (a big articulate word, look it up). You train your advice nurses to send anyone to the ER who might be sick or hurt (mostly to avoid being accused of malpractice). Doctors and nurses will not speak to patients about symptoms over the phone, you always say “come in.” Then you wonder why some of us aren’t unconscious and can speak. If you do not like the way your system works design a better one, don’t just complain. Also, set aside your unprofessional prejudice and treat all of us as scared hurting patients in need of care.

You need to rethink why you are in medicine. As it is now I will risk dying at home rather than being mistreated by the likes of you. But then you will like me; if I am brought in unconscious not only am I compliant but I fit your image of the ONLY type of patient that should be in the ER. Sadly, I will also be closer to death but at least compliant.

Annoyed,

Mike

But, these ideas have been passed around for quite a few years-in fact, my 91-year-old father , who recently had to have his gall bladder removed, actually slowed down his recovery-by refusing pain medicine. He lost so much mobility, that his doctors are having trouble with his recovery. I’ve seen him-obviously uncomfortable, finding it impossible to find a position in which he could relax. At first, I was angry at the hospital staff…it seemed as if their “philosophy” concerning pain relievers was similar to yours. But then, one of his nurses told my sister and myself that she had “finally” persuaded him to take a pain pill-but, since he accepted them so infrequently, they were still having trouble getting him to move, and improve his muscle tone. He remains hospitalized-we can just hope he sees the reason for, and necessity of, pain relief.

Me? Yes, I’ve had trouble with chronic pain. No, I haven’t always acted wisely. I was even convinced that I was a junkie-until a wise person-no, not a doctor, nurse, therapist, but a parole officer noticed my pain, and insisted that I get help for it.

I still encounter problems with under treatment. That is what causes most “junkie-like” behavior in true pain patients.

It seems that no one wants to know what we have to say-although they’ll listen to you-after all, you’re the experts! I don’t know why-I doubt if you’ve ever been in so much pain, and so sick and tired, that you’ll do anything for relief.

More on my experience can be read here. You should really try to think, before you post. You write well, and, no doubt, even some chronic pain sufferers will enjoy the idea of those addicts who scam the system “getting theirs”. But, if you succeed in misdiagnosing even one legitimate patient, you may be contributing to a crime, suicide, or, at least (or is that most?), to a person’s not getting help-or worse, thinking he/she doesn’t deserve it, and the painful way is the better one. In short, someone may end up having less of a life than they could have had-because of this game you’ve decided to participate in. I’ve lived 54 years-a full half in chronic pain-and, trust me, the painful way is not the virtuous, noble, or superior way..

I have been mocked by the nursing staff, refused medications (other than Toradol, an NSAID, which I can’t take), and told lie after lie. I’m not stupid. I have exquisitely sensitive hearing and I have heard the staff discussing me like I’m some kind of idiot.

I think the medical community needs to remember that out of chronic pain patients on narcotics for pain management, less than 4% end up addicted or engaging in drug-seeking behavior. I wish, for the ones who treated me so badly, that they would have the opportunity to be in the kind of pain I am in on a 24/7 basis and be denied what they needed so they could go home and sleep for the first time in 3-4 days simply because of an archiac, preconceived notion that anyone who asks for a specific narcotic pain control must be an addict or looking to become one.

The current attitude of much of the healthcare community needs an adjustment. If you’ll give an epidural to a pregnant woman so she won’t hurt so much in labor but you deny pain relief to someone who lives with that pain all day, every day, and loses often far more than you can imagine because of that pain, something is wrong. Very wrong. It is a sad statment on our priorities and a slaughtering of the Hippocratic Oath which says that physicians should first do no harm.