A Confusing Health System

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

I have some relatives visiting this week. As always, that means tending to all their “small” pain problems that go unaddressed at home. Some big ones too. As I get Portland Pain Solutions ready to open in July, these mini-consults are a good reminder of my mission.

I listened to one story of a family member’s seven-month struggle with facial pain and debilitating daily headaches. He’s seen his primary care provider. He spent a month in the hospital. “He just doesn’t know what to do”, my mother in-law said. There is an important generality here. People just don’t know what to do with pain. All too often, for various reasons, patients don’t advocate for themselves, and their caregivers don’t refer them to the right people. Navigating the health system is confusing, not just for patients, but for doctors too. If your doctor can’t fix the problem, and doesn’t know the guy that can, the path of least resistance is, sadly, to get swept under the rug. In the case of this family member, he’s at his wits end- hopeless, depressed, and in daily severe pain. He’s weighing the option to continue living with this problem, or not living at all. And the latter is winning. After carefully listening to his story – the whole story – including all the bits that on the surface sound unrelated, I think he actually has two separate and difficult to treat problems. But that doesn’t mean nothing can be done. A thoughtful, skilled, and creative pain specialist could do a lot for him. I happen to know such a doctor practicing in his community, and made a referral. He’s still in pain, but at least has some hope that there may be better times ahead.

I brought two of my relatives to the clinic in Portland. My wife’s mother had been suffering with terrible knee pain that for three months has made walking very difficult for her. Her doctor ordered an x-ray and an ultrasound, which showed a small Baker’s cyst. That’s a fluid collection behind the knee. That is where her care ended. She had a diagnosis, but no plan to resolve the problem. Why is that? It took me about five minutes to remove the fluid under ultrasound. She’s been walking pain-free ever since. My brother-in-law, who I’ve treated successfully in the past for years-long sciatica, complained of persistent upper back and shoulder pain. His doctor knew about the problem, but again- no plan. We did a simple soft-tissue release injection with ultrasound, and he’s also been better ever since.

So this week has been a good reminder of my mission: restore hope and quality of life by making medical care easy to access, compassionate, transparent, and effective.

Just call me and we’ll fix the problem.