Doctors Who Will Prescribe Pain Medication In Huntsville Al (Page 6)
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My pain management doc got investigated and now hes closed his practice down. I was getting 30mg oxycodone 5 times a day and morphine 15mg 2 times a day. Does anybody know a doctor in huntsville alabama that will keep me on my meds, need answer ASAP!

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If you have long term, chronic pain issues and need medication for them, you can self-refer yourself to the Tennessee Valley Pain Consultants group of doctor specialists. They are located across the street from Huntsville Hospital Main, and about a half block closer to the Parkway than is the hospital. They are very good, and do not under treat or over treat in both my and my husband's experience.

Their phone number is 256-265-PAIN. Call any weekday between about 8:30 and 4:30 to set up an initial appointment. This group is really, really good at managing pain. They do not push epidurals or other procedures on you automatically. They WILL effectively help you manage your pain with medication, once you become their patient. But, you will have to sign a "contract" with them stating you will not go to other doctors for any pain meds on top of what this group gives you. If you do that, and they do have ways of checking, it could mean a warning to you, or they could decide to simply stop treating you as a patient. Simply follow their rules, and your pain will be managed to your satisfaction. If at any time you don't think the drug(s) they prescribed are effective anymore, just tell them at your next visit and they will find something else.

My husband is in a lot worse shape then me, and they do all they can to ensure that whatever they have prescribed to him is effective. As soon as that is no longer the case, he tells them, and they find a different drug for him. You won't hear any staff at this group tell you to "just walk it off," if you are hurting. If you are hurting they will fix it.

On your first visit, you may have to have a drug panel done. Be sure before the drug panel that you tell them EVERYTHING you are currently taking, and it helps to have the actual prescription bottles with you for proof. Don't even try to see this group if you've engaged in taking illegal substances, as they won't take you on as a regular patient if they find illegal stuff in your drug panel results. Don't forget to tell them of every drug you are currently taking, and if you are taking anything that you weren't legally prescribed, don't even go to this group until everything is out of your body and you've decided never to use illegal substances again, as there will be periodic, unannounced drug panels while you are a patient of this clinic. Just do good, follow the rules and laws, and you will be wonderfully cared for. Both I and my husband know so from personal experience there.

Good luck!

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To sad mom and wife: Oh for crying out loud, a doctor should NEVER tell a patient in pain to just "bite the bullet." There is such a thing as a Patient's Bill Of Rights, and the right to be in as little pain as possible is one of those rights.

I don't know where you live, but my husband and I, both chronic pain patients, are seen at the Tennessee Valley Pain Consultants' group of specialist doctors. They will do all they can to ensure you are in as little pain as possible. Your condition sounds like my husband's. He is in much more pain all the time than I am, but the docs at the TVPC in Huntsville will do anything possible to adjust/change his meds whenever he tells them he needs help with pain and the current drugs aren't helping him much anymore.

Their phone number in Huntsville, AL is 256-265-PAIN. You can self-refer yourself there, just take all of your diagnostic history with you (x-rays are a big help).

If you don't live where you could visit the TVPC, call them anyway, to see if they know of some group or Pain Management Specialists in your specific area.

Good luck!

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Take note, ALL!

If you have been taking any pain med with Oxycontin in it, DO NOT try to cold turkey quit those drugs suddenly on your own! Those particular drugs (Oxycontin, Percocet, etc.) CANNOT be suddenly withdrawn completely and done safely. People taking those drugs need MEDICAL HELP to get through withdrawal as without slowly weaning off of them with medical help, you could have seizures, a stroke, or even die from the withdrawals these drugs cause.

If you have been taking Norcos, or hydrocodone-acetamenaphine and want to cold turkey quit those drugs, you will feel HORRIBLE for maybe several weeks after quitting them, but your life is not in danger from the physical withdrawal of these drugs the way it is with the other pain meds with Oxycontin in them.

If you are taking any pain med with Oxy in it, and suddenly find that no pharmacy will fill your prescription, take yourself to your local hospital's ER and tell them what's going on. The staff in the ER will understand that you CANNOT simply quit taking drugs with Oxycontin in them and expect to get through the withdrawals alone. Please, please keep this in mind too, before you ever start taking any pain med with Oxy in it.

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Tash, don't know where you live, but in Huntsville, AL, is the Tennessee Valley Pain Consultants group of doctors, and they are very, very good at treating long term chronic pain with maintenance drugs. They do NOT push epidurals or other surgery on you; they WILL give you the pain relief you legitimately do need. You can self-refer yourself there too. Their phone number is 256-265-PAIN. Give them a try. I have, and so has my husband. We live in TN, but go to Huntsville for pain maintenance help with that group. Very good, very kind people, so long as you follow their rules. Good luck!

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In reply to pain patients advocate: My husband had a congenital spine problem from birth and way back in the 60's as a kid, he started having spine surgeries. Of course, that was before knowledge of the development of spinal arachnoiditis came to the fore.

He's got it, and it's bad for him. He says when he walks, it feels like he's walking on broken glass, even if he's simply walking on soft carpet.

As I've said in other posts, all doctors have to get a DEA license in order to prescribe. Some doctors, because of the nature of their specialty, are automatically allowed to write lots of scripts for drugs of potential abuse, such as the opioid pain meds. Pain Management Specialists must go through an extra 4 years of medical training beyond all others in order to allow them to get the kind of DEA license that lets them write pain med scripts month by month and year by year, if a patient with a chronic pain condition needs those drugs.

Not even a spine doctor has the kind of DEA license privilege that will allow them to keep writing pain med scripts indefinitely for the patients they've done surgery on. ONLY a Pain Management Specialist doctor can go on and on, writing lots of pain med prescriptions without getting into trouble with the DEA.

In the North Alabama area, I recommend the Tennessee Valley Pain Consultant group of doctors and their physician assistants to people with long term chronic pain. As I've said elsewhere, you can self-refer yourself to that group of doctors. Do take all diagnostic history kinds of things with you to your first appointment, along with all the prescription bottles for the drugs you are currently taking. On your first visit, you might have to go through a blood or urine drug panels before the TVPC will treat you.

As long as you follow the rules after becoming a patient, the TVPC will be very, very good to you. My husband and I know this from our own experience with this doctor group.

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To: pain patients advocate. You live in NE AL, right? Then you could self-refer yourself to the Tennessee Valley Pain Consultants group for help with chronic pain. They have their main office in downtown Huntsville, AL, but do have other locations in N. Alabama as well, I believe.

If you do call them and make an appointment, when you have your appointment, try to take as much information about your conditions that cause pain as is possible for you to take with you. X-rays are a really good thing to have, if your pain is caused by physical problems. If you have nerve pain, but nothing would show on an x-ray, if you have any records from your other doctors, take them with you.

Also, you will likely have to have a drug panel before the TVPC will prescribe anything to you. If you are currently taking prescribed pain meds, take the prescription bottles with you to your appointment. If the TVPC can help you, you will have to sign a written agreement not to get the same pain meds from any other doctor while you are a patient of the TVPC.

They have ways to look up all prescriptions any doctor has written for you, so to have two different doctors prescribing you the same pain meds at the same time, could cause the TVPC to stop treating you.

I know this clinic very well, and both I and my husband have been patients there over the years. They are very good, but won't tolerate anyone using illegal drugs, or even if, on an unanticipated drug panel, they find some prescription drug in your body that you were not prescribed, it could mean the end of your relationship with the TVPC.

Don't let that happen. Follow the rules, and that group of doctors and their physician's assistants will be very, very good to you.

Good luck!

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jinxy.... if you're experiencing severe depression from all of your other health issues, you likely need the help of a practicing psychiatrist. Nothing to be ashamed of in that. It's not a problem that happy thoughts will clear up all the time. If you are desperately depressed, take yourself to your local hospital's ER and tell them what kind of emotional shape you are in. Do not let your state of depression go on and on, untreated. If you've been severely depressed for more than two weeks, and you're not able to pull out of it on your own, you need to find the kind of physician who can get you back on track.

Chemical changes occur in your brain with depression, and if it goes on untreated, the chemical imbalance will not right itself again. For that, you need the kind of drugs that "reset" the chemical balance in your brain. It's NOT any kind of weakness!

We are all stuck living dealing with the certain chemical balances or imbalances in our brains, either from birth, or from some event(s) that caused our brain chemistry to alter to being on the negative, down side. You cannot fight imbalanced brain chemistry with cheerful thoughts alone. Go to this web site: healthgrades.com, and look up doctors in your area that deal with people experiencing depression that won't clear up on its own.

Or, tell your other physicians that you are experiencing severe depression, that it won't go away, and get them to refer you to the kind of doctor you need to treat depression which IS a physical ailment; not just lousy coping skills that you should be ashamed of not being able to deal with on your own.

Bless you and good luck to you!!!

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If you have legitimate chronic, long term pain issues, you can self-refer yourself to the Tennessee Valley Pain Consultants clinic across from Huntsville Hospital about a half a block before you get to Huntsville Hospital Main.

If you do set up a self-referral visit at the TVPC, if possible, take x-rays or other information from past doctors you've seen with you on your first visit about your condition(s).

You'll likely have to do a drug panel at the TVPC or down the street at the Medical Mall (maybe blood, maybe urine) before you'll be prescribed anything by the specialists at the TVPC.

If some legally prescribed drug shows up in your body from the drug panel, you'd better have already told the folks at the TVPC that you've taken it, and it helps to have a fairly recent, valid prescription bottle with you, to prove you got it legally if it shows up through your drug panel, or the TVPC won't prescribe you a thing.

Same thing, most likely, if it's found that you have some illegal kind of drug(s) in your body (like cannabis or methamphetamine for example).

Good luck!

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Right. All doctors need DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) licensing in order to prescribe drugs (you'll see their DEA license number on the prescription pads they use to write prescriptions. Different specialties of doctors are permitted to write higher numbers of prescriptions for drugs of potential abuse than other doctors are allowed to do.

Pain Management Specialists have to go through an extra 4 more years of training before they are allowed to apply for the kind of DEA drug prescribing license that will allow them to write prescriptions for people with legitimate chronic pain issues, who need those kinds of prescription drugs to deal with their long term chronic pain, month after month and year after year.

If you're in need of long term pain management, look up Pain Management Specialists with Google, and for your town or area of the country. (You can also go to the healthgrades web site to look for these kinds of doctors in your area.)

That should help you narrow down to the doctors who can help you, and you'll find pain relief with the help of that kind of doctor if you have a legitimate need for it. Other kinds of doctors just cannot go on and on, month after month, year after year, prescribing one person pain meds again and again. Their type of DEA prescribing license doesn't permit them to do that, and if they get caught, they could get sanctioned or get their license pulled permanently.

Doctors who do write lots of scripts for drugs of potential abuse have to have all ten of their fingerprints on file with the FBI. That's so that if a "fishy-looking" prescription shows up on a pharmacist's desk for filling, verification for who actually wrote the prescription is readily available to view online at the FBI's site for this, on the alleged prescribing doctor's FBI fingerprint file.

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Doctors who write prescriptions MUST be licensed to do so by the DEA. The DEA monitors all doctors having DEA licenses. If they see a certain doctor writing prescriptions for certain medications in a large amount, for for a long time, depending on the doctor's area of specialization, that doctor may be investigated by the DEA, and may get sanctioned, meaning he or she isn't allowed to prescribe some drugs at all anymore...ever.

Pain Management Specialist types of doctors have to go through an extra 4 years of all medical training, and then they are allowed to apply for the kind of DEA script writing credentials that will allow them, and not other kinds of doctors to write lots and lots of pain medication scripts over the long term.

That's what the TVPC (Tennessee Valley Pain Consultants clinic) does, routinely. So they have the kind of DEA license that allows them to write pain med scripts in much greater quantities than other doctors are supposed to do. The doctor who did my hip replacement doesn't even have the kind of DEA credentials that would allow him to prescribe pain meds to me long term. That kind of drug prescription writing is better handled by a Pain Management Specialist than a spine or bone doctor any day.

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Yes, I recommend the TVPC too.

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Great post, and thanks for the link to help locate practicing pain management docs in any given area. I've saved it to use along with the "healthgrades" web site I use to look up doctors and see what's in their practice history, among other things, as well as reviews other patients have left about a given doctor. Good to know before you go....

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The post I am replying to is from some time ago, but I do know of people in the HSV, AL area with chronic pain problems and they go to the Tennessee Valley Pain Clinic in downtown HSV, across from Huntsville Hospital Main.

Hope that helps. Oh, you can self-refer yourself to see pain management doctors at that clinic, but it helps them if you can bring in x-rays, etc., showing exactly what your problem is, so they know what the best kind of pain med would be for your particular pain problem (different kinds of pain drugs are better for muscle pain, or perhaps others for nerve pain, etc., and pain management doctors who are DEA licensed to write a lot of scripts for prescription type pain relief for the long term chronic pain patient are able to go on prescribing these drugs to you, unlike another kind of doctor, such as a General Practitioner or even a Spine Specialist or other kind of "bone" doctor.

Hope you've found somebody by now; but if not, try the TVPC I wrote about above this paragraph. Sounds like your former doctor was prescribing you A LOT of pain medication, but I'm no expert. I just know what I need for my chronic pain issues, which is different from what my husband needs for his long term chronic pain issues. Mine is from broken hip and femur issues, his were the result of many, many lumbar, mid-spine, and cspine (cervical spine, neck spine areas) he has had to have fused over the decades due to a genetic condition he was unlucky enough to have been born with. I think he's had 18 spinal surgeries in the 33 years we've been married now. Ugh!

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Jinxy, I own a home in the NE AL. I want to live there but if there isn't anyone to continue my pain care- meaning my COT therapy? Then I won't be able to retire there in my home I have owned for 8 years. How sad it is to be an American but have no freedom in our own country because of DEA fear! This IS criminal and should not be allowed. The governor of AL is a doctor! He should understand what pain is. After all he signed a proclamation that Fibromyalgia month is Sept, or Oct. How strange..
I have been looking for doctors there. From reading on blogs, it seems there are only needle jockey's there. Big money for them and no help for the long term pain patients. A sad situation until more people start speaking OUT LOUD in AL about having their pain patients Bill of Rights to be honored there! Start advocating. Build groups and go to your state capitol and rally for your rights! We are doing just that in FL. The pendulum has swung too far and needs to be brought back to a balance. God Bless the suffering.. IN AL and everywhere else.

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Ben looking solo long n turned away that I'm began for help

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The dose this patient was taking was not to high of a dose. Just not prescribed correctly. I am talking about The man posting the original comment. In fact, for chronic pain patients, it is under dosing for some one that has been in pain management for several years. For Chronic pain patients, it's not usual for them to take larger doses than say a cancer patient or a post op patient. It's very normal to develope a tolerance at some point but... for many, once the pain is controlled, then it is rare need an increase of the dose for a very long time. Many people stay on that same dose for years and do fine. A main medication should be given for chronic pain along with a break through medication, preferably with no Tylenol added. I do see that the main med dosing is lower than the BT dose. Perhaps that's why the doctor got into trouble. It should be a higher main dose to a lower dose- 30 % of the main med for Bt pain. A proper dose would be more like 60 mgs 3x a day of morphine to 30mg oxycodone 3 or 4 x a day. Doctors need proper education on how to dose patients. Unfortnately in med school? They only a few hours of schooling to treat pain. Since pain is the 5th vital sign? We would think that doctors would get more education on this subject these days. Better pain management is must because of lack of proper dosing is causing under treatment of pain. Alabama from what I have heard, has mainly shot jockeys. These steroid inj's. for everyone's information? Are NOT FDA approved for the spine!! Beware of getting a disease called "Arachnoiditis". Nothing should be even getting near the dura space near your spine. Even needle guided larascopy is not safe. It's only takes the tip of the needle to puncture the dura to cause this painful condition and there is no cure and it will progress. No doctor in the world is going to tell you, OOps... I just punctured your dura. Sorry. So beware of these procedures and from what all I heard? AL is full of pain docs that insist you do these. Do know? It's against your rights to make you get these inj's. or procedures or I won't give you any medicine for your pain! That is coercion and isn't legal.

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It was awful...

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Jinxy, not sure how far you are but there is a good PM doc in Cullman AL

This is a "roundabout" way of looking for PM but if you do a search for the name of the med that helps you, the state you live in and the word publica (no it is not misspelled use the word as written) then you should have a list that pops up for your state.

For example you can google Lyrica Florida publica No commas

Next, click on the link that says something like top prescribers in **** state (your state)

Filter through the list for those closest to you. Also it will tell you next to their name what type of practice they specialize in, so that will help you too


hope this helps

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Can u help me?

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Huntsville al

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