Hi Lynn,

Good to see you here and sorry you have had such a horrendous experience. It might be a good idea to collect copies of all of your records. Your painful story really reminds all chronic pain patients that this is a good idea. I am almost up to date on mine, but need to fill in from one doc. Of course, even walking in with all of your records is not good enough for some - I know a psychiatrist who insists on getting records delivered from the source. But it is about the best we can do right now.

I hope you will be able to move on and get a good start with the new doc. That was one pretty big trauma you went through and I am glad you came here to talk about it. Hopefully you have been talking to those around you with whom you feel comfortable. While you do not want to keep focusing on these events, you do need to monitor yourself to see if you get recurring and intrusive problems . . . usually it's the memory of such events that will do this. You should also watch for behavior that may be driven by fear and/or anxiety related to all this . . . that usually takes the form of avoidance.

rafi