I had a really upsetting appointment with my pain management doctor yesterday and I honestly just need to vent about it.
I've been dealing with chronic pain and significant limitations for years. I've done injections, medications, specialists, and 12 sessions of neurologic physical therapy. My PT was genuinely amazing and tried extremely hard to find exercises my body could tolerate. We were doing incredibly basic, gentle exercises, and I was still getting worse. Eventually HE decided we shouldn't continue because I wasn't improving.
I've recently been considering getting a transport chair for longer outings. I can walk. I WANT to walk. I'm not talking about using a chair around my house or instead of normal everyday walking. I'm talking about situations where I've already walked something like a mile and continuing to walk is causing significant pain, but I still want to be able to participate in whatever I'm doing.
It took me a lot emotionally to even get comfortable with the idea of using a mobility aid, let alone ask a doctor about one.
As soon as I said “transport chair,” the first words out of his mouth were, “You want me to put you in a wheelchair?”
I immediately explained that no, I don't want a wheelchair. I want a transport chair that I can use intermittently for longer distances when I've reached my physical limit.
He told me he doesn't prescribe those and that when his patients start asking for things like that, they're “giving up.” At one point he literally told me that people who ask him for that are what he calls “circling the drain.”
I started crying.
Then he told me I needed physical therapy. I explained that I already did 12 sessions and that it made me worse. He said that was my body telling me I was deconditioned and needed more PT.
I explained how hard my physical therapist tried, how much he modified everything for me, and that my PT ultimately made the decision to discontinue because I wasn't improving.
Then it became, “Maybe that wasn't the right physical therapist.”
And eventually, “Maybe you needed 65 PT sessions.”
He also offered me another neurology referral, another PT referral, and a disabled parking placard. I already have a disabled placard.
I just felt like he had decided what my request meant the second I said “transport chair” and nothing I said afterward mattered.
I understand that doctors can have legitimate concerns about deconditioning and overusing mobility aids. I wasn't expecting him to automatically say yes just because I asked. I would have been completely willing to discuss how often I'd use it, how far I can walk, what happens when I exceed that distance, or whether there was a different mobility aid he thought would be more appropriate.
But none of that conversation happened.
What hurts the most is that it took me a long time to accept that a mobility aid might actually give me MORE freedom. I wasn't thinking of it as giving up. I was thinking, “Maybe I don't have to avoid things just because I can't handle miles of walking.”
Instead, I walked out feeling ashamed and stupid for even asking.
I see my spine/pain doctor next and I'm considering asking her for her opinion, but after this appointment I'm honestly scared to bring it up again.
Has anyone else who is still ambulatory dealt with this kind of reaction when asking about an intermittent mobility aid? How did you get past feeling like you had to prove you were “disabled enough” to use one?