Recently i did a post on phenergan, which I take for nausea, specifically the kind that comes with my sinusitis and sinus migraines. I am leaving for Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday morning, and checked my phenergan amount b/c I sometimes get sick to my stomach in other countries. One and a half left. I had the worst sinus year of my life, 4 kidney stones and countless migraines. Still, it seemed as if there should be more. The scrip was written 7 months ago to the day and it was for 60 pills.

Now, to be honest, I often take just enough meds that I need for a trip and take out the remaining pills. IF any pills are going to be stolen, I don't want it to be ALL I have. It's possible that I did this and somewhere there's a remaining 20 pills. I don't know. It's JUST as possible that I took them, given that I am used to taking phenergan when flying (I flew over 80,000 miles last year) when having migraine, kidney stone, stomach flu, and on at least 2 occasions, to help me sleep. (As discussed in the Phenergan forum, it does make one sleep better.) SO I'm GUESSING I took them but it wouldn't shock me to find I'd left/lost a bottle while traveling.

Anyway, I called my family doctor today to get in for an appt. He's the one who writes these, they're not for CP they're for sinusitis and kidney stones. He was out and would be out all day Monday. I leave 5:55am Tuesday. SO I am talking to the lady at the desk and she says I can just request a refill as there's no medical reason for me to be seen right now. She'll request a refill and wishes me luck on my trip.

AN hour ago the nurse calls. I'm not asking for anything strong and even when I broke my ankle and tore open my foot requiring 21 stitches did I ask my doc for pain meds. Nothing he'd give me would work as well as what my old doc gave me, and HE always said I could take extra for things like that, but I never did.

This nurse reminded me what it was like when I 1st had RSD but hadn't yet been fully titrated or diagnosed properly. She called to ask WHY I needed the meds. Um, b/c I get nauseous? I explained nicely that I had a bad sinus year, that I was leaving Tuesday out of country and didn't like to fly w/o the medication.

She then asked me how many I use. I said exactly what I wrote above. She sounded angry at one point, nice at another. She asked questions about the sinusitis and said it wasn't normal. I told her my hubby and entire family in WI had ALL mentioned at Xmas that it had been THEIR worse sinus year, and that a dentist had once told me that I had the largest sinus cavities of any woman he'd ever seen.THEN she says, "What's your dentist's name?" I was floored. Was she gonna call him?

And of course I'm watching my 2 year old, running a bath and talking all at once and I said, "I'm blanking on his name but he practices in****" So then AGAIN with how many do you take? And over and over till we've done a full conversational circle.

THEN she asks me if I want to see the doc. Now, I'd asked this morning for any appt on Friday or Monday but he was off. Now she says they got the Monday schedule wrong and do I want to be seen. This late in the game, I didn't WANT yet one more thing to worry about before a trip like that. So I said, "If you NEED me to see him, I will. But I'd prefer not to be running around all day Monday when I have an early flight Tuesday."

If I needed to see him to get me enough pills to get me through my trip, I will b/c it IS a new country, one where I don't speak the language, and my sinuses are bugging me already, so nausea I know, will follow.

"I don't need you to see him, I just hope I don't get in trouble."

"For nausea medicine?" Then I told her IF she felt she would get in trouble, to NOT fill it and I would take my chances. It wasn't a huge deal. And she said, "Well I already sent it through." WTH? After all that?

I am SO confused! This isn't my pain doc where years ago I'd expect that kind of stuff, but does she think I'm abusing an anti-nausea medication? 60 pills in 7 months with my history of kidney stones, flu, and severe sinus migraines is nuthin'! My old pain doc would give me a refill every month if I needed it- I almost always left them unused.

It isn't until after we hang up that I realized why this "chat" bothered me so much- it felt to me as if it were a power trip! I've NEVER asked this doc for a thing, not even a refill for my asthma inhaler, w/o seeing him. I HATE these kinds of requests b/c they make ME feel like I'm doing something wrong! And my doc is sweet, soft-spoken and kind. When i asked him to take over the phenergan last year he didn't have a problem with it at all.

And then it hit me. She had my CHART in front of her. It says on there what I take for RSD and probably the most recent thing she read was
that my pain doc died and I needed a referral. She wouldn't have spoken that way to a non-CP patient.

I'm just confused as to why she needed SO MUCH info about why I take the drug when it says so in the chart. And the tone she took- that was straight out of the "we're better than you" handbook.

For those of you who have to deal with people like that on a monthly basis, I am sorry. I've been treated so well so long (with one small bump when my doc died) that I'd almost forgotten that unless we're dying, they will always assume we're "less than" for using opiods.

I'm not saying all nurses or docs are like this, or even that she was THAT bad, but I don't LIKE being spoken to as if I've done something wrong. The chat ended nicely, she wished me a good trip, but it rubbed me the wrong way. If I'd been asking for a pain med or something, maybe I'd get it, but an anti-nausea drug? And it wasn't even so much WHAT it was but that I was finally asking for something. They're not used to it.

Ugh, what a day. To top it off the pharmacy closes in 10 minutes and my hubby is bowling so I won't know if she refilled it or if she sent like 5, which means I won't know if I can take half of the one I have left tonight or wait and see. This bloody MI weather is killing me! It's either cold so my RSD flares or it is too warmish/.humid and my sinuses go nuts. Can't win!