"It seems as if he just doesn't want to give me pain
meds or muscle relaxers anymore."

Your experience is all too common.

According to the New York Times, the DEA has "been
prosecuting doctors for prescribing painkillers like
OxyContin, even where there's no evidence of any of
the drugs being resold on the streets"..."The doctors
who matter are the small number of specialists in pain
treatment who prescribe opioids. Ronald Libby, a
professor of political science at the University of
North Florida, estimates that 17 percent of those
doctors were investigated during one year by the
D.E.A., and an even greater number of others were
investigated by local and state authorities, typically
in concert with the drug agency. That means a pain
specialist might have a one-in-three chance of being
investigated for prescribing opioids.

Faced with those odds, doctors are understandably
afraid. As noted in The New England Journal of
Medicine this month (Jan. 2006), the D.E.A. has made
doctors reluctant to give opioids to desperately ill
patients, even when these drugs are the most effective
pain treatment."

The result is all doctors are increasing reluctant to
prescribe potentially habit forming drugs. So they
will give non-narcotic drugs like Neurontin
(gabapentin) which doesn't help the pain but has lots
of side effects. See
http://www.legalnewswatch.com/news_411.html


A Pain Management doctor will not treat the cause of
your pain - he will only attempt to control pain
through a variety of techniques - most of which don't
work for this kind of condition - unless he gives you
a narcotic & muscle relaxants. The question is will he
give him to you?

Now that you have a diagnosis, try negotiating with
your Orthopod to continue your drugs until you get
some improvement through PT. But don't get aggressive
with your doctor. He is in a terrible position.

If the cause of your pain is the piriformis muscle
spasm clamping down on the sciatic nerve, then a good
muscle relaxant (like valium) is the more effective at
lessening the cause of the pain. A narcotic makes you
fell better, but is not directly reducing muscle
spasm.

So maybe you could negotiate Valium for less narcotic?
Just an idea - it is up to you & what you can work
out with your doctor.

Hopefully, through PT your pain will lessen or
disappear. And then you won't need the drugs. Good
luck. Mary

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