Hi, I m a 58 year old women is reasonably good health, I eat organically, for 30 year, been sober for about 30 years, I have had 4 manic attacks , which I did not know i was having and turned to apple cider liqueur to deal with the feelings of craziness, before a week was up, I signed my self into a rehab or psychiatric hospital, with the only diagnosis I had to suggest, that I was an alcoholic and needed help. once there, I could not relate to the other alcoholics, only because it had been 5 or 6 years of daily AA meeting and sobriety. I thought that I would get psychiatric help there and quickly found out that the had no psychiatric on board. It was a complete was of time for me. Someone eventually suggested that I was bi-polar and that helped a lot. 4 year ago. for the first time in 20 years I was at a corporate job which entailed sitting 6-10 hours a day. My back went out and nothing helped, I was in bad shape, I went to the ER were they said I had very severe spinal stenosis. . And a few vertebra that had no cushion. I was scheduled for surgery, but I oped out because I had no one to support me. I went the medication route. I tried to work but the medication slowed me down, It was strong, 20mg morphine 3xday.. then they switched me to fetanal patches.. I then spent most of the next 2 years housebound, not doing too much. When I stopped working I was lying down most of the time and with limited activity , my back wasn t so bad, i switch to percocet. 2 years Ia go I moved to Colorado, and became very active, this moved me to ask my doctor to increase my medication,, to dilaudin and started my own business doing facials. But after 6 months, My back was felling much worse. The doctor increase mt medication to moraphine. I did nothing for the last year and then a few months ago I wanted to go visit some friends, I had no idea how much stress it would but on my back. It was a complete disaster. For the first time I up my medication without permission an my own to deal with the pain. When I got back. My doctor in Denver suggested I go to a doctor in Colorado Springs. She had no compassion about my pain and would not order a MRI. I had to stop paying Kaiser $1000 a month (for medications and $200 for meds every month for 5 years. I had run out of money. I got on medicaid, and the immediately saw how much pain I was in and ordered MRIs. The MRIS showed that in 31/2 years my stenosis had gone form 2 to 6 vertebra and bulging dish and reactive sclerosis. Peak Vista can not prescript pain medication. So Kaiser takes medicaid so I went to the same doctor at Kaiser. She does not believe in fetanal patches and order 20 mg oxycontin 2x day Which does not seem to have any effect. At night my back is so bad, i save them both to take at 10pm so that i can sleep until 6am,, then i take 2, 5mg oxycodone,,,which I m suppose to take 1 every six hours. she did not even look at the new MRIs, she has the old ones from 4 years ago.. and wants to eventually get me off off of medication.. I too would like to get off of medication, but my spine is falling a part. I have 3 neurosurgeons lined up yo see in the next four months. i would like to be comfortable while waiting for my surgery. These MRis show me that s its for sure some tolerance to the meds but my pain is is far worse than it use to be. I m not asking for double the dosage. simply the correct amount that I need. Is this too much to ask. I have found that there is no such thing as a pain medication specialist in Colorado Springs, They all seemed spooked by some strange spirit here or there is a strong religious faction here.. Or they have no training or experience with these medications. I have been in NYC and LA and Orange County where they have specialist, that all the do is monitor your pain medication. They actually believe people have pain.. They actually have a test here to see if you are taking you meds... Like what else would you be doing with them? Do you have any doctors here in Colorado Springs or surrounding areas that can read MRIs and slowly get me where I need to go? Thanks for reading this long message. But I needed to get this out, I appreciate any suggestions. Sincerely, P. Beals