Hi, Rrae:

Because my primary care doctor does not give appointments, patients get seen on a first-come, first-served basis. I try to arrive at my doctor's office early every month, but since I am obliged to take public transportation (I have epilepsy and cannot legally drive) and since buses start running quite late in the area where I live, it is not early by the time I arrive at my doctor's office.

I have to wait between two to three hours to be seen. Having RSD sure does not help me wait in a sitting position for hours. I need another chair so I can put up my RSD leg (my RSD started in my left knee/leg before becoming generalized and internal), but when the waiting room is full of people, as it almost always is, I can kiss good-bye to a second chair. If I have to stand because I cannot find a chair and no one will give me one, it is even worse. When I ask for help from office staff, I hear things like: "You are not in a hotel here!"

Like you, I have to call the pharmacy a day or two before I go see my doctor, so I am sure the medications I need will be reserved for me and not given to someone else. I am tired to have to do this, considering the fact that I have been getting the same medications at the same pharmacy for years.

I hate going into a pharmacy to be told: "We do not have this or that medication anymore. We will have to order it and you will have to come back in a day or two to get it."

I want to tell the pharmacist: "Hello! I am disabled! I have RSD! Do you think this syndrome makes it easy for me to come back again and again for medications you should have ordered, knowing I come here every month to get them! Have you also heard of withdrawal (which I guess could be dangerous at the 125 mcg dosage) lowering my seizure threshold and causing a seizure! I am a mother who lives alone with her two-year-old baby! I do not want problems because of CPS if I have a seizure caused by fentanyl withdrawal!"

I already had seizures caused by fentanyl withdrawal; one of them was a status seizure (not sure of the exact name), which lasted a very long time. When I wake up after a fentanyl withdrawal seizure, I never ever call the ambulance because I am afraid the paramedics will call my doctor to tell him about my fentanyl withdrawal seizure (my doctor might wean me or cut me off of my fentanyl patches if he is afraid I will have another fentanyl withdrawal seizure); I also do not want the paramedics to call CPS, who will be more than happy to steal my baby.

Thanks for your kind words and information.