Hi, Mickeycbee:

Before I started using fentanyl patches in September 2002 for my severe chronic RSD pain, I was taking hydrocodone tablets alone. They were totally ineffective at controlling my pain, so I would often go to the Emergency Room for help. The ER doctors would usually refuse to help me because they thought the hydrocodone tablets should have helped me. At that time, no doctor knew I had RSD. Neither did I.

One day, in the ER, I met a great and funny doctor. He was the first one to ever find out I had RSD, even though I went in denial when he told me about his diagnosis (I knew what RSD was from reading all the chronic pain books I had borrowed from the local public library). I complained to this doctor about how ineffective my hydrocodone tablets were. He could not prescribe anything stronger for me (I guess that is how it works in an ER), so he re- prescribed the hydrocodone tablets for me, which I was to take with a Valium tablet. This helped for a while but, unfortunately, not that long. Afterwards, a primary care doctor prescribed the Oxycontin tablets I had asked him to prescribe for me. A few months later, another primary care doctor prescribed fentanyl patches for me to use instead of Oxycontin tablets. Since the patches were effective, I had no reason to refuse them.