How Do I Get Legitimate Treatment When I am An Addict? What Do I Do When I Have A Real Issue? No Doctor Will Take Me Seriously

This is a question i get almost daily. Guys, so you are patients just like any other patient ok? My promise to you is that we will treat you with the same level of appropriateness and respect as any other human we treat.

If you come in with an infection, we will treat you with appropriate antibiotics. IF you have a medical condition or other meds that may interfere with the antibiotics we will modify if we need but still treat

if you come in with hi blood pressure and you have a medical condition or meds that might interfere with other BP meds we will modify if we need but still treat you

if you come in with diabetes and you have some other problem and need more insulin we’ll treat you with more or different insulin.
CAN you imagine if you came in and I said “hey so since you are already on insulin you dont deserve more insulin just because your glucose levels are high” ??? Can you imagine this?? WELL, as you know, this is what is happening to our patients who are on chronic pain management and worse yet patients who come in with addiction

Addiction patients deserve proper pain management just as chronic pain patients sometimes need MORE pain management (like if you break an arm) just like diabetics need more insulin at times etc etc… this is not rocket science right?

IM actually NOT KIDDING when I make the following statement:

Most lay persons understand that even patients with substance use problems deserve respect care and proper pain management when suffering from legitimate problems than do our colleague physicians

Do you know that I still run into ER physicians who say to my kidney stone sufferer “well you’re already on methadone, i cant give you more pain killer”…. yes, this is true and I still hear that in 2018.

Yes, we need to be cautious and we need to monitor carefully. FYI MOST of my substance use patients actually appreciate being monitored closely!. They DO want proper pain management, they DO want to stay in control, they DO want to continue their excellent lives in sobriety and they DO want to do the right thing. It’s actually the NON-substance user patients that generally complain to me when i dont give them tons of pain killers.

We really need you, the patients, to help educate US the health care providers. More on how you can do this in the very near future!.

Stay alive
Andreas J. Edrich MD FASAM ADM MRO “the addiction doc”