The prescription pad doctors
As the last post on the blog showed, I have been again in a position of being given "medications" in an improper manner, resulting in a heart condition which has yet to be explained because of a series of unfortunate events beginning at Sienna Wellness Center owned by Dr. Robert Gross and partner Dr. Gary Finstad.
Could these events been different had there been some significant education and lack of judgment? I'm sure of it.
Are the people willing to take responsibility? Not as of yet.
My personal story
I recognize this is my personal story, not part of the usual "KVHD under Fire" fare, but it was explained to me by "professionals" outside this valley, what has happened to me over the last week and even the last several months.
And due to the fact it is a safety issue, it has been reported to the FDA Medi-watch line which monitors the use of certain drugs and the application of healthcare personnel and emergency rooms who don't correctly utilize these "drugs" and do not follow up.
I'm going to write a series while I recover which may help others avoid totally relying on what their physicians and their assistants offer as advice.
I accept my responsibility
The first way to gain understanding and have your dignity is to find and accept your responsibility in any and all situations: even the bizarre hierarchy in AMERICAN medicine today.
I can't force anyone else to do the same, in fact, it seems there's more of a volley ball game going on than any show of true character and compassion. When things go wrong, doctors run.
They put on those jogging shoes and hit the road if they find you are not responding to their "prescriptions" and vilify and victimize those they cannot diagnose, the one "percenter's," as WE are sometimes called.
Eight days and nights of excruciating pain
Sorry, I did not explain in my previous blog, but it certainly is descriptive of the condition I am in and working very hard on my own to find the information to help myself or the aid of others who have the compassion and knowledge.
More than a week ago, I woke up early to heart palpitations, as my body had been through quite a lot of stress, breaking teeth with my car door at the August KVHD board meeting. (however, I finished the meeting, blood trickling down my face)
Due to my intolerance of many medications, doctors who rely solely on prescription pads are often little or no help. And more likely going to cause more damage.
We have a serious problem coming, and it's the doctors who flee when a medication goes bad.
After deciding to treat my pain, a year and a half ago, I have been put through the ringer of bad advice, insensitivity to the issues of necessary refills, anxiety that "withdrawal" symptoms will occur, and a general laziness of education of how to know when a drug is not working, but instead harming the patients, me, you, your children, your parents, etc.
But I have been labeled a "drug seeker" by some who are quite dense and cannot understand that I have bags of drugs at home I never took due to "discretion."
When the prescription pad is scrawling out all sorts of things from laxatives to anything new on the market with more side effects than the condition itself, it's time to stop and STAY SAFE.
Here in the Kern River Valley
We have little in the way of selection of doctors, and specialists are all out of town, or sometimes come up once a month or so to quickly go through a heavy load of patients hoping for some personal communication with someone they RESPECT and TRUST.
It's just not here for most of us, and especially those such as me, who question, speak up, and have had every patient right violated while I've attempted to recover since I arrived here, sick, in 2003.
Send them away or mollify us
Those they cannot diagnose in an hour, are sent away for other doctors to interpret, and sometimes the results of lack of communication are devastating between doctors.
After struggling with the drug, "Methadone" a favorite of the local doctors for pain control, I was sent to a pain clinic in Bakersfield run by a "guy" called Dr. Ashok Parmar as my doctors did not, as they said, have this special ability to deal "Doctor Dope." You will be hearing that phrase from me for a long time to come.
If you are a junkie, you can go to Dr. Parmar, and apparently he will fill your car up with multiple medicines children or the eldery and ill could easily overdose from. I met another person going to this man for his care for pain. The amount of medicine he has stored up are "FOR SALE."
That's right, Dr. Parmar, and many others are sending heavy duty drugs to the streets under the auspices of "pain management."
Listen Dr. Parmar, I believe from India, has risen to a huge new building, wearing new suits and ties, and has a great thing going: his customers can't leave or they will be in the shoes I have been wearing for a week: painful and dangerous withdrawal.
Not once did this doctor educate me on the risks. At one point he was so unprofessional he plopped onto the examination table, while I looked on from a chair, as he said to me, thick with accent, "you don't like to take drugs do you?"
What did that mean? Hell I don't know. I only want to take what I have to so that I may function.
Stopped functioning
As Dr. Parmar, becoming more resistant to the fact I wouldn't take all his drugs, I asked about a drug which in my opinion should only be used for terminal patients. he prescribed it. My regular hometown doctor's assistant didn't follow it, and knew nothing of this new 24 hour acting pain reliever, though I alerted him immediately.
New to the market of drugs, drugs, drugs, even "The Drug Store" in Kernville hand't heard of it.
EXAGOL is its NAME' O
I took this drug and found myself with a very low pulse, in the 30's and 40's. Dr. Parmar, who has moved into a large building on Brimhall, after protesters besieged his former place of business claiming he would not pay decent salaries to those behind the scenes workers.
Well, he left them behind and has really got himself a "legal crackhouse" in my opinion.
He didn't follow my chart, collected no detailed information, offered no education, did not correspond with my GP and then put me in withdrawal...twice. I metered the doses by myself to avoid the painful cessation which occurs and can harm your heart and mind.
He dished it out, but can't take it.
KVHD Emergency Room response
When I stopped by to see what the thumping was about in my chest last week, my pulse was slow. The doctors on duty knew nothing of the drug I was taking, or had just tried, prescribed by Dr. Parmar.
They brought in the knowledge of "poison control" and they did not have all the details and recommended to the nurse and doctor to administer a drug called NARCAN. That drug is specifically used on those who are unconscious, in "respiratory distress" from too many opiates. But my distress was not respiratory and the drug was unknown.
Last thing I really remember, was a "great nurse" whom I respect talking to poison control on a cell phone. They told him to add a "drop" which is an unmetered dose into my IV and see what happens.
Stop here: there is a protocol for many older drugs, but the EXAGOL was not among them, according to the FDA.
NARCAN is short lived, an opiate antagonist, but EXAGOL is long lasting. There is great risk to do something like this, but between the KVHD doctors and poison control it was administered to me. Within less than a minute, no warning to me to prepare for the pain of my life, I was screaming and up in the air clutching my chest.
I thought I'd died or was dying. I'm still going through this, on this ninth day.
Then as the "experiment" didn't work, as my heart rate fell even lower, I was hit with things and next thing I know it's evening and I'm being transported...to a scary situation in Bakersfield and my regular doctor doesn't even follow up.
Upon leaving the hospital in Bakersfield, I saw my primary physician, who made remarks such as "does she have a gun?" He came in with a junior whom he tried to look like he was training. I had my own assistant with me too.
This physician looked up the drug and the recommended steps to "come off of it" and an hour later I found out he was incorrect, or his information was incorrect. He said to titer down from the top of the dose then just "drop off" when it's half way down.
Not knowing what he was talking about in an experiential way, I spoke with several people in the rehab industry who told me it was the opposite, and I, the lowly patient, even know that from experience. So, should this doctor, a PA, be giving this sort of advice? Probably not in my opinion.
Part Two: Pain Mgt. creating new drug addicts, rehab seeing more and more doctor created addicts
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