I'm TICKED OFF!!!!! - Pain Management Message Board

lisam1120 · 02-23-2009, 11:33 PM

Ok so as most of you know, I am scheduled to have a Discography done today at 1pm and the appt was made on the 19th of last week.

I had gone out to run some light errands such as making sure the family would have an easy dinner to prepare in case I couldnt or wasnt feeling too well to do anything heavy for dinner. While I was out apparently my PM office called around 5:30pm which is way after the office was closed for the day.

The office asst. had left a message saying this... "Hello, I see you are scheduled to have a discogram done tomorrow (today) at 1pm with Dr. G and I dont think that this is right. (?) You came in on the 19th and you all had discussed doing the epidural/facet injections which your workers comp adjuster had approved to have done, but I dont think it was discussed for you to have a discogram because your WC hasnt approved that procedure and it wasnt asked for, so i'd like to talk to you about this and i'll be in the office at 7am if you could call me back".

First off, unless they have hidden camera's or mic's in the room, the only two people that were in that room were myself and the doc and he and I are the ONLY two people that know what was discussed at my appt. as far as what the plan was for me.
How on earth is this girl going to tell me that she thinks this is wrong and that we didnt discuss this procedure because it wasnt approved or submitted to w/c????? She wasnt in the D*** room!!!!! Not to mention I have a copy of my plan sheet which clearly states that a discography is to be done.
I scheduled the appt on the 19th and they are only waiting until today, the day before the appt to even look at my plan sheet and get my w/c involved to approve the procedure!!! So because they didnt do they're job, i'm the one that is wrong in thinking this is what i'm suppose to have done and therefore it was never discussed. Your kidding me right!!!!! Sure, place blame on the patient, its my fault, I have no idea what the doc and I discussed and because it was never submitted for approval to w/c that means that its a wrong procedure and i'm not suppose to have this done because it was never discussed.

Phewwwww ok, I think I feel alittle better now. Count to 10 right and take some deep breaths.
I've been an absolute wreck about this whole thing since I scheduled it because I knew the type of pain I was going to be put through and the whole surprise factor and the not knowing has driven me close to the edge and now i've got some girl calling me telling me I dont know what was discussed at my appt blah blah blah. Well, guess what? I was close to the edge and that just pushed me over BUT the great news is that i've crawled back up now.

If they want to reschedule then fine by me. I didnt want to go through it anyway and maybe now with some delay involved I can actually see if I can get the other place to do it that does IV sedation instead of simply taking several valium, which after knowing how I reacted the first time to the IV part and the doseages I just didnt think the valium was going to really work.

I guess i'll get a call at 7am to let me know that I dont know what I was suppose to have done and am I sure this was what I was suppose to schedule for. I'm not a morning person, so not too good of a time to tick me off.

Hopefully by 7am they would have pulled my chart to see that this IS what the doc and I had discussed, because this IS also what the surgeon wanted me to have done prior to going through a series of ESI's and FJI's. Makes sense to me to do this first, in case there is no need to have the other inj's done all together. They have had since the 19th to start the ball rolling on approval from my w/c, this is not MY issue, like they are trying to turn it into.

Funny thing is that at one of the websites that I go to where patients can rate they're doc's, this particular practice had consistent remarks from patients about "scheduling nightmares" and how patients would have procedures scheduled and be called the same day by the office to cancel them. Guess I can now be added as one of those people. LOL.

Oh well, what are ya gonna do right. My husband is going into work this morning at 3am so that he was able to get off to take me to the appt, so at least i'll have him home early.

I'm laughing now and am actually a bit relieved that this may not happen at all today, but when I first started typing I was at my boiling point.

I'll let you all know what happens and thanks for letting me vent!!!!

Lisa

lynn1961 · 02-24-2009, 10:02 AM

Lisa...........

Gotta love doctors offices huh? Now how aggravating is that? sheesh, I can feel your aggravation for you. After physc-ing <preparing> yourself mentally to get this test done <which I can so relate to that, I cancelled my first discogram appt. cause I was a nervous wreck and no anxiety medication to help me> and they screw up the appt. Whew.....I would be HIGHLY agitated too. It is OK to vent..... with all the pain you have from your back and then have to deal with incompetent workers in a doctors office, its is ok to vent girl. Make ya wanna go jump off a bridge somewhere LOL

BTW.....I think you are absolutely precious LOL I read your post and you are so specific and detailed. You should be a writer of some sort

Just do as you say....take deep breaths and try to relax best you can.....you come and post and vent all you want cause most of us feel your pain and AGGRAVATION too......

LYNN

lisam1120 · 02-24-2009, 04:25 PM

Hi Lynn....
Awwww thank you, your actually the 2nd person to say that my posts are very detailed. I like to try and write them, so you can really feel what I am
feeling.... well not the pain part... LOL. I actually attempted to write two
books. I started writing both about 18 yrs ago, I think I got to chapter like 8
and gave up. On both projects actually. One was about being homeless and living in a shelter and the other was about being in abusive relationships and the repeated cycle. Both were based on my life and how I was living at the time. I actually still have the copies, they were typed up on an brother electric typewriter because if you had a computer back then, you were rich and I was far from being rich, living in a homeless shelter

So I did get the call this morning at around 7:30am. She asked if I was sure that I was suppose to have the discogram done and I said to her.... "So you still havent looked at my chart yet? bcuz if you had, you would see what the doc and I had discussed doing on the 19th and the answer is YES, he said that while talking with my surgeon after seeing me for the first time, it was decided between them that a Discography needed to be done before any of the ESI's & FJI's". She goes onto say that w/c hasnt approved it yet and that she has not yet recieved a call back from my case worker so the appt would need to be cancelled until its approved.
So I said "ok, well if you dont mind i'd like to make a suggestion which is that you place something in my chart stating that any procedures other than the ESI's and FJI's need to be approved through w/c PRIOR to making those appts. because obviously the girl at the check out counter didnt know she couldnt make the appt, and I wasnt aware that this wasnt going to be worked on until the day of the appt, at least this wont happen again if handled alittle better next time". She claimed that she was out of the office for two days last week and thats why it wasnt worked on. I"m finding it a tad bit hard to believe that with an office full of approx 10 doctors that they only have ONE person handling w/c approvals. Anyway we ended our call in that when it was approved they would call me back to reschedule.

Good thing I hadnt started taking my valium last night or this morning. That would have been a complete waste of trip in lala land. My poor husband woke up at 3am to go to work and I had to tell him, that the appt may not happen based on the message left on my phone and I wouldnt know anything until sometime after 7am. Not to mention I would have to do this all again and he would have to either go in early again another day or take off. Not very fair to him.

I dropped the kids off at school and I actually went back to bed after the phone call this morning as I was exhausted from nerves and not being able to sleep well at all last night. I put my earplugs in and out I went. Well during my sleep, the doc's office had called back starting at 8:45am and continued to call until around noon stating that I could now go in and have the procedure done and to call them as soon as possible. I didnt wake up until around 1:15 and by then my original appt time had past. I listened to the last message left and lo and behold it was from the Doc. himself. His message goes like.... "Hello this is Dr. G and i'm calling to let you know that apparentley there had been some confusion about your procedure being approved and your appt was cancelled because of it. I want to apologize for this and let you know that your appt should have never been cancelled and the only confusion was with the girl that called you. Everything was set to go and w/c was fine with this procedure. If you would like to come in today and get this done, my last patient is at 3pm and i'll be happy to stay late to get this done for you, if you cant do it today then we will be happy to reschedule for you, again my sincerest apologizes again. If you need to reschedule, tell them to put you in at anytime that you would like and if there is a problem with that then tell them they need to put you through to me directly and we will get this worked out for you. Thank you and again i'm sorry that this happend".

Wow, that was pretty impressive. Someone must have got a new rear end chewed into them this morning for the doc himself to call me and then offer to stay late to get it done. That was extremely kind of him, but by this time my husband had left to go to the gym and run some errands, I had just woken up, the kids were going to be home soon, so in the end it just wouldnt have worked out to just pick up and go in to have it done. So I called back and spoke with the girl again and she was very polite this time around and rescheduled for March 3rd at 9:30am.

So thats the end of that adventure.

Gotta run to pick up my daughter, so ill check back later.
Lisa

Toonces1 · 02-24-2009, 05:52 PM

Hi Lisa. I just wanted to say that I don't think the discography is really that bad. There is some pain, but it goes away quickly, and the sedation really makes you not care a whole lot about it. It was much much easier than I had thought it was going to be. Good luck!!

lisam1120 · 02-25-2009, 01:03 AM

Hello Toonces1,
Thank you for responding. This will actually be my second Discogram that i've had done, so I'm familiar with them. I'm sure for some people they may not be that bad and really I guess it also depends on how badly the disc is damaged as well in that it will determine the levels of intensity of the pain you may or may not feel.

My whole issue with this one, was that a different practice was going to be doing it. My PM doc is actually doing it this time around whereas before I had an Anethesiologist do it. I was given the IV sedation and unfortunatley due to my nerves/addrenallin and my tolerance build up to medication, they ended up giving me 4 doses of IV sedative and I was not in a state of mind that most people would or should have been in. They were actually amazed and quite shocked that after 4 doses I wasnt slurring my words, drooling, telling them my whole life story ect .... but they could not give me anymore as the max allowed for any patient regardless of size was 4 dosees. I only weighed 115lbs at the time, so you can imagine how odd it must have been for them. Regardless of how I was feeling, which was fine and normal, I was on the table and draped ready to go, so we went ahead with the test and for me personally it was a horrible and horrific pain, which ended quickly, but still for those few seconds it felt like a lifetime.

So my concern this time around, is that the Doc does not use IV sedation, he has simply given me a script for valium to take prior to the procedure. I am to take 2 tabs when I wake up and then one more tab every hour until I feel like i'm fairly loopy and my concern was that if IV sedation didnt do what it was suppose to, i'm not too sure that a valium tablet will do the job. I think I have the option to go to the first place that I went to, however that would mean that my surgeon would need to write out another referral, it would need to get approved by w/c again and really its just alot of extra work. I thought I would give my PM doc a chance and see how it goes, the worst thing that could happen I suppose is that the sedative just didnt work and they will have to send me off to do the IV instead and hope that it works there as well.

Its scheduled for next Tues so we'll see what happens, but I do thank you very much for responding.

Lynn & SS.... sorry that I had to jump off so quick, I didnt realize that it was almost 6:30 and didnt want my daughter waiting outside in the cold for me to pick her up from work.

I wanted to let you know that when the girl had called back to reschedule the appt she said that I had to arrive an hour early. Well she's been saying from day one since this started that I only had to arrive 1/2 hour early. So I said to her... "well wait a second, an hour early? you've been telling me only 1/2 hour early, why am I coming in an hour early? am I taking the valium while i'm there and not at home? I dont understand." She then says that Yes I will be taking the valium while there and that i'll be given another medicine to take a well. So i'm thinking.... yes they have seen the light and decided to go with the IV sedation, i'm going to be fine now hopefully. NOT.... The medicine they are having me take is an antibiotic and i'm going to assume that its by IV? or are they really making me come in an hour early to take an antibiotic pill that takes an hour to get into my system. It has to be via IV, I cant imagine that they are making me take a pill, when thats something I could have done at home. Well either way, we now have the answer as to the Antibiotic question!!!

So on an ending note..... I'm scheduled for Tuesday at 9:30am, but will be there at 8:30am to take or start my antibiotic. So in other words I get an additional 6 days to become a wreck again with nerves!!!! With any luck, i'll walk in there with not an ounce of fear and sail through this test like a pro. Highly unlikely but it doesnt hurt to think this or pretend it could happen.

I will check back nighlty as I always do and respond if needed. Until the next time, I hope everyone is doing ok and is only dealing with low levels of pain or is lucky enough to have no pain.

Thanks again to everyone....
Lisa