March 22. 2017
When Den was released from the hospital, we were given a prescription for Oxycontin to help with his pain. It has been helping, but we know that it has a high risk for addiction. The LVAD Team suggested that we get into the Pain Clinic to see what other medication could be better to keep Den pain free.
Our appointment is early in the morning, so we will go to the infusion center when we are done. When we arrived, Den needed to fill out some paperwork. One of the sheets was a map of the body where he needed to indicate where his pain was and how severe it was at this time. Den rated his neck pain at a 3 and his back pain at an 8. Since we had been told that no one could do anything to permanently fix his back and get rid of the pain, this visit to the pain clinic was our only option.
Dr. Wright came in to see Den. He told us that if the pain was caused by an infection, it would go away on it’s own. But it could take a long time for that to happen. He agreed that Oxycontin was not good for a long term solution. He suggested that Den use a fentanyl patch. He also gave Den a prescription for Norco to help with the pain until the patch took effect. He said that it would take a few days for the patch to kick in and to back off on the pills after that.
Both of these prescription are narcotics, so they could not call them into the pharmacy. We had to take the paper orders to the pharmacy in person to have them filled. So we dropped off the prescriptions at our pharmacy on our way to the infusion center. This way, we could pick the meds up on the way home.
The infusion center staff was great, as always. They said that they were worried when we didn’t come in for our usual morning appointment, but they were happy to see us. We told them of our morning adventure to the pain clinic. They all said that they hoped that the new meds would help with Den’s pain.
Den's LVAD 