The problem?  Just my CO-PAY for my regular dosage for one month is over $400.  If I add in the smaller dose, which I do not always take, that runs me about an extra $250 per month.

Sure, these time-release opioids work great, but they are all new and there are no generic brands for them.  My wonderful pharmacist breaks my prescription up into amounts of $50 and now that we have Grant’s disability money, in amounts of $100.  You can read about a time when a pharmacist was not so nice to me about helping me with this enormous expense here.

No matter how you slice it, I am still paying about $650 per month out of pocket.  So, what do people do when when they can no longer afford their outrageously expensive meds?

They go on Methadone.

Yeah, you read right, that Methadone.  The legal drug they give to heroin addicts which works on them the way heroin works but is legal.  Methadone emerged in the 1950s as a primary treatment for opioid addiction and is still the primary therapy for it.

For people who use it for chronic pain it is given in a different way and can be very effective. It would cost me about $30 a month, instead of $650.

Yeah, but it’s Methadone.

Several months back I talked about going on Methadone.  My doctor said that if I could afford to keep paying for my current treatment, that he really liked the way it worked in conjunction with the rest of my medications.  I love it because I have never felt any side effects from it.  Grant and I talked it over back then and we decided it was important for me to stay on my drug.  Who wants to fool around trying to figure out the right dosage, and run the risk of possibly life-threatening side effects when you start on a new pain med?

But now is now, and I just can’t keep paying what I am paying to manage my pain.  My doctor said that at first he would start me off at a lower dosage to work my way up to the amount that is right for me. During this time I’m “not going to do well” because I will be taking roughly half of my usual pain medication to work my way up and I worry that I might end up in the hospital with mind-blowing pain.  I worry that I will be able to function even less than I usually do and I worry that my son might see me screaming in pain.

And of course, it’s Methadone.

Everyone knows what that drug is, everyone knows the primary reason people take the drug. My doctor did say that it is many patients’ experiences that their friends and family look at them differently when they find out they are taking Methadone for pain management.  That in their minds this confirms it, that their sick loved one is truly a drug addict.

Of course, I don’t have to tell anyone I am taking Methadone.  But maybe I should because that’s what I am all about; breaking down stereotypes and educating.  How many more friends can I lose anyway?  What do I care if a stranger knows I am taking Methadone?

All I know is, I cannot go on paying this outrageous amount of money every month.  I must make a decision soon, but I pretty much already know what that decision will be.

Yeah, but it’s Methadone. 

The post M is for Methadone first appeared on Mama Sick.

During this time, Grant was begging me to go to the E.R., but I hate going there.  Mostly I find it to be a huge waste of my time, no help, no results, etc.  You can read more about my last E.R. visit here.  I literally have to be near death to go there I hate it so much!

My PCP had diagnosed me with inflammation of the sacral iliac joint, but you can’t really get a diagnosis by someone just poking at your body!  I wanted to consult with my Rheumatologist due to my feeling that it was a joint issue and he was a good second “go to” guy.  At my March appointment he wrote a prescription for X-rays. This past Monday was my April visit and he said the X-rays showed nothing, but we both agreed the X-rays don’t tell the whole story, or in my case, tell nothing.  He wrote a prescription for an MRI but that is something that requires pre-authorization from the insurance company so his office manager set about procuring the authorization.

On Thursday my back pain hit a different level.  The only time my back didn’t hurt was when I would wake up in the morning, but on Thursday, there it was.  I was at my limit.  Insane back pain with no break!  Grant and I discussed the E.R. and I was weakening.  On Friday morning I told him I was going to go.  I took a shower, got dressed, got some entertainment together; the book that I am currently reading for my book club, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, Parents magazine, my newspaper and my iPhone.  Then I called 9-1-1.  For the uninitiated, it is always best to go by ambulance, otherwise you are stuck in the waiting room for God knows how long.

Unfortunately, it was an extremely busy day at my hospital’s E.R.  I was triaged to the lowest ranking E.R. I did not even rate a bed, I got to sit in the most uncomfortable semi-reclining torture device known to man which made my back feel even worse.  The nurse came over and took my vitals and wrote them on a napkin.  Now, one of my followers on Twitter told me that she was in the healthcare industry for years and this is very common, but it wasn’t to me!  I’m thinking, Should I just walk out of here?  Is this the biggest mistake of my life?

If you are wondering if Grant came with me, the answer is no for a few reasons.  He had an appointment with his therapist, we didn’t know how long I would be and he wanted to be closer to home for Tyler, who was in school, and he also has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.  In fact, his PTSD is from being in hospitals.  I was fine without him.  I had the above mentioned entertainment and my wonderful friends and family on Twitter and Face Book!  I want to thank everyone who was virtually there for me, you were wonderful support!

The Physician’s Assistant ordered a CAT scan and morphine for me, yay!  I am no drug seeker but as those who have chronic pain know, I needed a BREAK.  For the first time in months I didn’t want to feel that back pain.  I was also happy to be getting a CAT scan.  The nurse gave me the morphine shot in my left shoulder which hurt like hell, and, because I have Fibromyalgia, actually made my other shoulder hurt too.  I was waiting to feel loopy and…nothing.   No loopy.  No relief.  Nothing!

I got my CAT scan and told the nurse that the morphine did nothing for me and she told me they would give me something else.  Grant showed up,  the hospital was literally on the way home from his therapist’s.  We kissed and hugged, he held my hand but what else could he do for me?  By the way, the whole time I kept asking for something to drink, something to eat, anything, and I never got so much as a swig of  water!  This place was worse than prison.  Luckily I had brought coffee with me and had eaten a string cheese at 7:00 a.m.!

The nurse gave me a shot of Dilaudid and once again, I got no relief.  Grant said by now he would have been totally loopy but I could have operated heavy machinery for all it had done for me.  By this time, Grant was getting upset over my lack of care, I hadn’t even been seen by a doctor and I had already been there for THREE hours!  Plus, his PTSD was kicking in.  He told me he was sorry but he had to go and I understood.  He later told me that while walking back to his car he was crying so hard that someone stopped him to ask if he was okay.

I told the nurse that the shot of Dilaudid hadn’t helped.  At this point I found out that I was triaged so low that there was no doctor in my part of the E.R.  Can you believe it?  I never got to see a doctor, apparently I didn’t rate. How can there be no doctor in an E.R.??  I was glad that Grant had left because he would have gone ape shit if he knew that.  I got a second shot of the Dilaudid and still nothing. I walked over with my cane to tell the P.A. that I had gotten no relief and that I have given up the hope of getting relief.  She said, “Well, sometimes we can’t take all your pain away” and I said, “No, literally I have had no pain taken away.”

Finally I got the results of my CAT scan which I will put here in hopes of some advice from those who have “been there”.  I have not had the time to even research what some of it means.  “Mild posterior disk bulges from L3-4 to L4-5. There is a left conjoined nerve root vs. disk herniation at L5-S-1…MRI (recommended) for better characterization of degenerative disease.”  Like I said, I don’t know what it means but it sounds very scary.  I am scared.  The P.A. referred me to a spine specialist and told me that things might move faster with the insurance company now that I have a bit of a diagnosis, a CAT scan and a trip to the E.R.  So, as inhumane as my experience was, it was good for a few things.

She gave me a prescription for the Dilaudid and a prescription for Valium which I have yet to fill and after five hours I was released.  Grant thinks the Dilaudid may work when I am in the thousand times more comfortable environment of my home.

I am happy to have a diagnosis but I am also frightened as I realize that this is only the beginning with a new condition for me that I know very little about.

The post Trip to The E.R: The True Story! first appeared on Mama Sick.