Life imitating fast-talking, bah

[davidgillon]

I had an over-the-phone medication review yesterday.

This was with a pharmacist my GP's surgery has now added to their team, so not only was it over the phone, it was with someone I've never met, and who obviously didn't know what my diagnosis was (she did eventually ask, but only well into the discussion).

Given the only medication I'm on is a strong opioid*, these things always go the same way - the medic tries to convince me I don't actually need it any more. It turns out this is an even easier argument for them to make when you're not sitting in a wheelchair in front of them.

So I was half-expecting to have to dig deep into symptoms and consequences, and I did.

After finally establishing that yes, I did indeed still have exactly the same levels of pain it was prescribed for, we then had the traditional pushing for alternatives, "Have you ever been referred to the pain management team?"

Yes, repeatedly, and they don't think I'll ever not need strong painkillers.

Which pretty much shut her down. And she then said the one thing to convince me she did have at least partial access to my notes by pretty much quoting my GP verbatim from the last one of these: "well, you're on the lowest dosage and it is working, so I suppose we can leave you on it."

So that's done for another year or two.

And then my hips started hurting, a lot.

I'm not certain it was entirely due to the meds review, not only was my pelvis visibly more rotated than it's been in a while, but yesterday was also the last day in that patch's theoretical 7-day duration and there's a bit of individual variability in how long they really last, but having to think about these things is never helpful for actually controlling how much pain you actually feel.

(I'm mostly fine today, possibly a bit stiffer than usual, but pain levels are relatively normal).

* In patch form, so <s>almost impossible</s> extremely difficullt to abuse.