I’ve had a doctor say “I’m sorry, but we’ve hit a wall” to me, smile, and then drop me as a patient.

I don’t blame him.

My last pain management doctor commiserated with me that the only possible pain management that may work for me at the time was still not legal in Texas.

(Weed. It was weed, and Delta-8 CBD was not a thing yet.)

So, I’m thoroughly exhausted about seeing doctors. All of these brain doctors trying prescriptions and injections to the point where the first general practitioner doctor I saw suggested that I go on oxygen for ten minutes for “farts and giggles” because it wouldn’t hurt to try (it did help a little).

She actually said “farts and giggles” to me.

Gosh I’m tired remembering all of them. I think I’ve seen about ten doctors. Five of those were different pain management doctors I had to see at one clinic. I had to repeat the story of my concussion five separate times in one clinic because they were super shitty at scheduling who was on staff at any given day.

Three of them refused to prescribe me any opioids because they, personally, weren’t comfortable with it.

(I was a bit more uncomfortable than them since that was the only thing that alleviated my pain.)

Of the other two, one tried a sphenopalatine ganglion block—which involved shoving two extra long cotton swabs all the way up both nostrils (think COVID test but deeper) while the doctor dripped lidocaine down the sticks and I laid on my back for forty-five minutes so the local anesthetic could trickle down into my sinuses. All that did was make me taste lidocaine for the rest of the day.

The last pain management doctor prescribed me indomethacin to take “as needed”. This instruction was later deemed dangerous by my primary care physician and I have more on that later.

My latest primary care physician moved. I can’t do it again. I can’t make myself find a new doctor. I can’t verbally repeat everything to another doctor when I’ve exhausted all medical means of pain management. I think I’d scream if I had to go to a new doctor.

Like—a frustration scream. The kind of scream that I do when I wake myself up from a nightmare where I have really bad aphasia. I scream in the dream for so long that I do it out loud and wake myself up. I sound like Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks.

My first memory is of being held down by a doctor as he cleaned out my ear infection. I remember screaming because he was pushing down on me so hard that it was difficult to breathe and it hurt more than my ear infection—it felt like he was pressing down with all of his weight on me with one hand. I was barely three years old when this happened. I’ve done all I can to avoid going to the hospital since then.

I have always associated the doctor with experiencing more pain. And I do—the stress of seeing any doctor makes me run out of energy faster than usual and it makes my headache worse.

Even seeing the optometrist is draining for me. I never expected to be overwhelmed by answering the eye doctor’s questions, but this last appointment had me on the verge of a panic attack the entire time. Even reciting the letters in the eye test felt confusing—like it was too much for me to focus on. It didn’t help that I was still having trouble sleeping when I had that appointment. I think I’d been awake for thirty-six hours at the time.

Compounding factors made the trip to the optometrist extra stressful for me. Beyond the usual stress of seeing a doctor.

I don’t know how to get over this anxiety. So I avoid it as much as possible.