Massachusetts is utterly failing at pain management and chronic pain management. I didn't buy it until I became sick. The number of doctors that told me my pain was just stress related is frankly a joke. No, taking a breather and having a tall cocktail isn't a prescription. It didn't help anymore than taking a vacation did.

I was recently diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Add to the list that I'm in PT for a few months for my pelvic floor, a recurring GI illness and I can't sleep anymore. I had to stop working because I can barely function. My PCP refused to send me to neuro or a pain management doctor, so the ER made at least made a referral to neuro. Neuro at BIDMC sent me away without testing because it wasn't a stroke or MS. Rheumatology at Mount Auburn said it's unclear what's wrong with me, said it's not worth testing for. They suggested fibromyalgia but said the meds for it aren't that great. She put in a request for a sleep study and said she can't help. PCP keeps gatekeeping specialists or is too fearful to help me develop a non-opioid pain management plan.

THC doesn't help and the feeling of being high is awful. Muscle relaxers and valium also don't do anything. PT and acupuncture twice a week aren't cutting it so I started experimenting with a float tank, an infrared sauna, the Curable app, and a psychiatrist from my long-term mental health care provider's office. Called most of the pain management clinics in Boston and the ones at big hospitals who either don't take medicaid or have long waits. Some of them allegedly only treat people if they have cancer or some other intractable disease???

I get it now. I get why people turn to heroin or suicide and I'm personally done judging people who end up getting hooked on whatever they're on. You have to fight doctors to take you seriously. You have to fight insurance and gatekeepers to get in with the right doctors. You have to constantly be careful of what you say because any doctor can label you as a drug seeker on your medical record whether or not you're even taking opioids. There's no compassionate care even for those who can't get in with those pain management doctors to begin with, so for that unlucky swath of the population, if you don't get opioids to help with pain or gabapentin or something, it's pretty obvious they're gonna get what they can on the street.

So I don't want to ever hear from anybody in this state ever complain about the opioid crisis again when the state and it's doctors at nearly every level do nothing for chronic pain management patients-- particularly the people who can't afford all of the alternatives therapies I'm trying (which aren't working). I don't even get much relief from the opioid I have so who knows what I can get my doctor to try next.

Almost no doctors or insurance companies are willing to help treat pain patients with a multi modal approach. The doctors that do won't accept self-pay. Insurance also won't cover most non-Rx treatment for pain, either.

Not only is it extremely difficult and cost prohibitive to even find a good doctor who doesn't brush off pain and Fibro patients as mentally ill, or flat out tell patients that their only options are meditation, NSAIDS and learning to live with their pain, but even if you have the money, you can't access the few doctors that care even just a little bit.

What do you expect people to do, Massachusetts? I've been doing everything I can but sick patients can't keep fighting to find good doctors who want to help into remission.

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