I am a Kaiser member. 7+ years. In their system, they assign everyone a "primary provider" who serves as the gatekeeper of sorts for the member. Many, if not most, of their primary providers are Certified Nurse Practitioners.

Mine is named Julie M.

It took me several years to learn to trust her; it has taken her about 3 weeks to destroy that trust.

Years ago when I first went to see her about this strange tingling in my feet, she ignored my suggestion that it might be PN and sent me on a series of tests to rule out diabetes and maybe something else.

{At the time I was a bad boy. I smoked (tobacco and pot), drank (daily and periodically, to excess). I ate lots of fast food and/or fatty foods. I wouldn't blame her for not thinking I was serious about taking care of my health.}

She then referred me to a Kaiser neurologist. He did some more tests and then confirmed I have peripheral neuropathy. I was started on gabapentin; after maybe 6 – 8 months he switched me to nortriptyline (why can't I spell that) which gave me panic attacks (I'll never laugh again when someone says they experience panic attacks – they are not fun).


Then to Lyrica – which was recently bumped to 3 pills a day – the highest dose the neuro has ever prescribed. [Julie M. also prescribed Vicodin for periodic use.] Since I've been experiencing increased pain (7.5 – 8.0 for several hours at night) as well as a new tye of pain (periodic shooting pains), the only thing that works consistently (and sometimes dramatically so) is the medical marijuana.

Which shows up in the urine tests I have been providing.

As a result of that, Julie M. has stopped prescribing Vicodin (it might have worked to reduce pain between .5 and 1.5) and has told me that she will be stopping the morphine.

Not only that, the neurologist and Julie have disagreed about the medical marijuana issue (neurologist wrote me that if it works for me, she thinks it is great); Julie asked me to speak to Addiction Medicine. When I did, the PA I spoke to told me that since I admit to drinking 4 – 6 ounces of wine every 7 – 10 days, I am probably an addict (not in so many words, but I certainly understood the implication) – without taking the time to review my chart.


I think they have put something on my chart because when I went to pick up what will probably be my last prescription of morphine (I take 4 15 mg. CR pills a day), the pharmacy tech looked me over, quizzed me about why I was picking up when I had a few days left on the prior prescription, accessed what I thought was a private email system while I stood at the window and then read me the first sentence of an email Julie sent to me that said “If you continue to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana I cannot prescribe morphine” -- in the presence of another patient who was picking up her medicine.

Adding to the mix of problems – I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety and stress about care for my elderly parents and disputes among siblings about what to do. Julie had previously prescribed something for the anxiety periods (on an as-needed basis) and is now stopping that because of the marijuana.

Needless to say, I am angry and scared.

I've reviewed the Kaiser appeals/grievance procedures and it appears I need to exhaust my appeals before I can file a lawsuit. So – I need to add the grievance/appeal issue to my list of things to do.

But I did talk with a friend of mine who has done injury litigation for many years – and he said he'd represent me. So I have lawyered-up.


Because Julie has done this, I no longer trust her and will have to ask for a new primary doctor (which will no doubt be interpreted as “doctorshopping”, a form of addict behavior) and spend all that time getting to know him or her.

I don't think the morphine works (at least not at this dose), so if she stops me, I can probably taper off over a week or so, but then there will be nothing for the pain except the MM (I am speaking about prescribed remedies – I do exercises and other non-doctor involved things).

I am only vaguely familiar with injury law, but it seems to me if they started prescribing narcotics to me at a time they knew I was using MM, and then knowingly stop providing pain relief – well, I've seen cases where doctors get slapped pretty hard. I mean financially. It is called “Intentional Infliction of Emotional and Physical Distress” and allows a jury to impose punitive damages. I think there may also be some other violations as well, but am not generally familiar with federal laws in a case like this.

Anyway – just thought I'd share this. I'll post updates periodically.

Cowboy