Hate having to come in to urgent care!!

Woah, 2 hours to get a vein? Sounds like they were using you to practice on.
It's not always about going to a vein that can be seen, they should be going for the median cubital vein. Whether it's seen or not, with good palpation they can locate the vein.
Number 9-
www.merriam-webster.com/art/med/vein.htm

Do you get constipation from the pain meds?

Post Edited (Datawraith) : 9/22/2012 4:23:56 PM (GMT-6)

Okay, just took a look at your picture, Data. No, that vein is IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to get on me. Sorry.

Hi Wowgirl,

You did everything correctly too, like hydrating beforehand to make it easier to get the veins. Very weird.
I was going to repost the link of yours but it has spaces in the address (if you look at the site), they should have used underscore or a hyphen if they wanted the space between words. That's why it shows the % signs. Oh, I see CrohnieToo tried also.

I'm glad to see you're trying to ween off the pain meds, I went to pain management for a while and they gave me Oxycontin at one point and I couldn't take more than 2 pills (1 per day).
They wanted me to try it for extended release, too strong for me, felt whacked for a whole 24 hours and didn't like that feeling. Plus I had to drive to work.
Another thing I didn't like it that it felt like my life had to revolve around the pills, at least to a degree and in the sense of making sure I had them in order to not have massive withdrawals. A few times I would call the PM office to pick up my script, get the go ahead that I can come pick up the pills (Always seemed to be on Fridays too). So I ask my manager to leave a bit early, I do and get to the PM office, "Doctor has left for the day and they take the scripts with them." Then I have to ask, "I called, you told me to come here, so why didn't you tell me the doctor was leaving at a certain time?" Felt like crap all weekend from withdrawals, then would have to ask to leave early again on Monday to pick up the script, just ticked me off.
I got tired of all that, went to my PCP and told him I no longer wanted to take those meds. I was showing him what the PM was doing because I felt it was odd and my PCP agreed. So he was great with helping me out and got off them in a few months. I just hated that withdrawals feeling so much, how quickly tolerances can build up and how the PM would dole out very strong meds so quickly, how often they would screw up on getting me a script and being treated like I was a criminal or a drug addict.

I guess you take the Oxycontin for pain and the Oxycodone for breakthrough pain. Just always try to remember, they're pretty strong pain meds and it can be a bear to get off them.
I mean that with all due respect, not attempting to be condescending, tell you what to do but just being considerate of your well being and looking out for you.

Mywowgirl said...
Okay, just took a look at your picture, Data. No, that vein is IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to get on me. Sorry.

The 3 main veins a Phlebotomist are taught to draw blood from the cephalic, median cubital, and basilic veins. That's why I brought it up and we were on the same page with them.

Post Edited (Datawraith) : 9/23/2012 11:28:47 AM (GMT-6)

That's good you had back up, the only thing is and I had this happen, the insurance company called my PCP stating that I already had pain meds from the PM. As I said, I kept my PCP in the loop and turned out not to be a problem as he made the insurance company aware that he knew exactly what was happening. It almost as if I was close to being flagged as a doctor shopper and here I am only doing the right thing.
Are they for Crohn's pain or back pain? I weened off in 2 months and that also allowed me to "reset" my tolerance to any of those pills, my PCP gave me 5mg Percs for whenever I may need them for back pain. I only take them if I really need it, definitely not going to revert back to building up tolerances.

Gaming should help keep your mind off things too, lol.

Ah OK, yeah that's quite a bit but keep it in perspective, it's due to the tolerances.

Very glad to hear you've come so far along in reducing the meds, takes a good amount of willpower. Keep up the great work.
If you feel up to it and get a point that you feel you can, core exercises helps me a lot. PT too, had a few sessions of that it helped. I would have continued with the sessions but can't due my financial situation.

Hey MyWOWgirl, sorry to hear it was rough. :( I hope you're doing better! I don't like ERs, and I think I like Urgent Care even less. Does yours give you pain meds? I went to the local Urgent Care and they just send me over to the ER and it's just wasted time because they don't keep any narcotics at all. My body doesn't do pain meds - it takes 2 mg of IV Dilaudid just to get my pain from a 7 down to a 3 or 4, and it wears off after about 3-4 hours. Orals don't even touch it, so I can't take anything at home. We tried a patch once and got nothing.