This post got out of hand and grew to a tl/dr status. If you just want the gist please scroll down to the last four paragraphs.
I am not entirely sure where to put this. I may get all wound up and angry again, and I could lose my shit and get sent to The Pit. I don’t want that to happen as I have a question or two that I would like to get opinions on, not just vent my spleen. Ready? Ready.
I am disabled, with multiple issues. I was living in Alaska when the majority of my issues were diagnosed. (Between November 1997 and June 1998 I went from a healthy woman living the subsistence life in the Alaskan Bush to a woman who felt sick, unbelievably tired, and everything hurt.) My doc back then gave me a script every month for hydrocodone (10/325) with the direction to take up to three a day for pain, as needed, and it worked like a charm. There were days I didn’t need any, some when I needed the prescribed three. I did not become addicted, I did not need more because of a tolerance build up. I was unaware of pain clinics at the time, but they were becoming a thing, and of course, the party people had to get on that bus, and come back to the island to trade/sell/share and drink, and guess what began to happen? Yep, people began to die. My doc got a visit from the DEA and after that, he had to refer me to a pain clinic in Anchorage. I spent the next six years bouncing from oxycodone and oxycontin, methadone, and morphine. It was a bad time in my life, and when my primary doc pulled me aside and told me to “Get the fuck off that shit or you are going to die” He never said anything like that unless he was truly concerned, and so I finished the scripts I already had filled and then quit. Yeah, cold turkey, and it was a bitch I never want to repeat. I had a physical dependency, and I was sick while going off of them. I have since used oxy’s after tooth extractions and surgeries since, but as soon as the pain backs down I stop, with no problem. I don’t have an addiction to pain meds of any flavor, and I can double down and tell you I know the difference between physical dependency and addiction because I am a cocaine addict. (It was never a terrible story, but I used it, I binged on it more than anything else with a friend on the weekends, although there was a short time (months) when I was using pretty heavily. I have been completely clean since February 5, 1995.) I have not had a steady pain script since 2006.
At the present, I am back in the Lower 48, northwestern Washington state. Since moving back I am now seeing the third doc at a local clinic, not because I am a bad patient but the first doc moved to Portland and the second changed his specialties. So now I have a new doc. I am slightly disconcerted that he is within the same age group as my own children (I asked, and he is at least younger than my oldest child; I am old. 
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I had my medical records sent down from Kodiak, I don’t know why I bothered. It’s obvious that none of the practitioners I have been seen by have cracked that file, and I am having to go from diagnosis to diagnosis, having to prove each individual issue I am living with, even though they have the results of all the tests they did in Alaska. I do have chronic pain, and while I have a fairly high pain threshold as I get older some issues are worsening, and in addition to disrupting my ability to do the things I do, there is some significant pain. I expect to have pain every day, that is just where I am now. However, when I can barely hobble to the bathroom and back to my bed, a light pain med (hydrocodone really does work best for me) would be a bit of welcome relief. This new doc has made it clear that he won’t be writing any scripts for pain meds, period. Fine. So I use cannabis. I am in a state where it is legal, and this doc encourages me to use it. Groovy. I guess that means I don’t need to be concerned with any UA’s.
I had an appointment with him last Tuesday, and even though I didn’t ask for any pain meds he launched into his “Pain meds won’t help in your condition. In fact, I just read a study that shows pain medication doesn’t help people with arthritis.” which broke my brain for a moment. I asked about spinal stenosis and degenerative disc disease, he said nope. I asked him just what, in his estimation, qualified as needing pain meds and he said "Well, if you were bedridden . . . " I lost my mind then, because I am, for all intents and purposes, bedridden. I force myself to get out and garden and go to the store and for rides into the country, singing with my kid but I pay for it with pain. He then said, three times, that I should go find kratom, “but you didn’t hear this from me, wink wink nudge nudge.” When I asked him where would I find it, in a health food store? He replied, “No, at a head shop.” 
I have read about kratom in the past, and it seems to me that there are just a few too many variables, and even on the website of the most recommended kratom there are no good dosing instructions. It seems sketchy as shit and I don’t know that it’s such a good idea to randomly pick a vendor and the color of the kratom leaf I desire, and then just play with the dosing.
The Opioid Crisis is all about getting the major druggies clean enough so they don’t die, but there are many, many pain patients who are suffering as a result. I guess I will be planting poppies this summer to augment the thc/cbd.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading, and do you have any opinions regarding this new doc? I have seen him three times, and I don’t know how comfortable I am with him.
