It’s been quite some time since I’ve updated here.
I’ve seen a rheumatologist, who says I do not have Fibromyalgia. Of course his view could be skewed as everything was setup and handled by the Workers Compensation Assholes. Along with most of the Doctors whom supposedly treated me last year. The only doctor of course whom was not referred by SCIF was from my last and hopefully final incompetent attorney, Laurie K. Allread. The psychiatrist they had me see, Dr Stephen Signer, just pumped me full of drugs, like Cymbalta, and failed to provide any real treatment for me, and I ended up in the hospital with severe chest pains thinking I was having a heart attack. Did he ever inform me of this? NO. Was he prescribing this very new, drug for off-label purposes? YES. Dr Laurie Pierce, refused to help me in any way. Later I learned that this lack of treatment, to be very likely to be a cause for the increase if my symptoms. In the past I have only been able to keep moving by use of Aquatic Therapy, in which the buoyancy helps to relive the pressure on my body, and back. Just walking around, as prescribed by Dr Laurie Pierce only increase my most painful symptoms. I should have never let SCIF “run” my treatment.
Before I had to move to Sierra Vista, I had their doctors write their final reports, bad move. Because of this choice, I’ve had to go the QME route. Putting my fate in the random luck of the draw that is the Department of Workers Compensation QME Panel. I then learned that I was going to be shipped back to California for these examinations. This sucks of course, because I do not travel well. It wipes me out. SCIF being the cheap bastards they are, wanted me to fly from Tucson and then to Phoenix, having to drive an hour just to get to Tucson, which I am unable to do, and then fly for several more.
Good thing, Great Lakes started flying out of Sierra Vista again. This helped greatly, cutting down on travel time to and from the airport, and total time cramped into my seat in a plane. Of course what I am forgetting to mention is how I have now had two QME evaluations for my cases. The first one was definitely skewed towards the favor of the Insurance company. The one I had several months later, U got real lucky due to SCIF’s inability to train their agents that they are not to have ex-parte communication with the QME, just my luck helped, as the next QME I saw, has helped me tremendously. Recommending things for my future care that I know I should have been receiving for the last 2 years, which I was receiving before from my PTP. The insurance company and their doctors have been telling me NO, and saying the insurance company won’t approve this, or that, well of course they cannot approve what you do not ask for.
My advice, the doctors are the gatekeepers, if they are not working with you, or listening to your demands for treatment, fire them.
I would have been able to help myself in this aspect last year, if only I was not so fucked up on mind altering drugs that Dr Signer put me on. The only reason for my use of them was his promises of pain free living. What a joke. I am definitely changed mentally. I cry more often than before, and get quite emotional.
It seems that almost all the doctors I’ve seen have forgot to tell me that Surgery is the likely option to give me relief. Very scary, as I liken the option of surgery to a butcher carving up a cow.
I read in the September 2005 issue of Popular Science this month, that last year the FDA approved the use of a nonslip disc for the spine. This piece of modern technology is called the Charité. A disc made of polyethylene and cobalt-chromium allow, will shift and slide to allow a full 21 degrees of motion. I think this ability to have complete range of motion is very important to me, as when I first became injured, and for the next few years after, I had practically zero range of motion when it came to using my back. Now I have the ability to touch the ground while standing up with flat palms. Getting up takes me almost a minute sometimes of course. Any doctor whom suggests disc fusion for back surgery to me is simply trying to take the cheap and easy way out, or is too ignorant to learn of new technology to help their patients.
There is just so much I could write about this last year, which I’m sure I will get to some day. But for now, this is all I feel like writing.
