Heather_Brennan

I went to one of the biggest pain clinics in Pennsylvania. It took me almost 2 hours to get there. I had a 9 AM appointment which was killing me because my pain is worse in the morning. So I managed to get there on time. Then I had to sit in a waiting room for an hour, then I went into a tiny hospital room and waited another half hour to see someone. The doctor asked me about 10 questions then he left. Then I had to take a standard drug test which is required of all patients seeking medication as a form of treatment. The nurse came back about 20 minutes later to tell me the dr went on his lunch break and would be back in about 45 minutes. I hurt so bad I couldnt take it anymore and I wanted to leave. She told me I could reschedule another appoinment to come back down again. I told her how impossible it was for me to do that. Then she told me that it probably was not worth my time becuase they do not prescribe pain medication to people my age (I am 23) because it is so addictive. She said the options I had were to either have aqua therapy or epidurals every 3 weeks. If I opted for the epidural treatment someone else would have to drive me because I cant drive afterwards and there is a waiting period of a 6 hour stay afterwards. I checked out the facility where they do the aquatherapy and it was disgusting and dirty. There was no way I was going to get into there. When I was leaving they told me they would call me with the dr's diagnosis before the end of the day. That was over a month ago. I have contacted them 3 times but no one has called me back yet. I talked to my pharmacist about pain clinics and she told me that most of the people going there are already addicted to pain killers and just looking to get more pills. And most of the time they do get them. So in my opinion based on my own experiences I do not reccomend wasting your time and money seeing a dr at a pain clinic. Most of the time they deal with people who have localized pain and they really cant do anything to help you anymore than your family physician can. I recently switched doctors and it the best thing I ever did. If you are in pain and your doctor isnt doing anything to help you I suggest finding a new doctor who can help you better.