dealing with traumatic medical stuff

I can understand that too.  I'm sorry for the struggle you are having.  I just hope you're able to muster the strength to seek medical attention when you need it.  Do you have a trusted someone you can bring with you to help advocate for your care?

I have had a very similar experience several times and have had similar reactions/feelings. There are some doctors and hospitals I would rather show up dead at than use again. One of the things that helped me very much is to write an advance medical directive (they are online at five wishes dot com for less than a dollar or two and valid in most states with two witnesses to your signature.  There are specific boxes regarding pain issues, and space to write in detail. I keep a copy of it with me, and any time I go to a new doc or an old one with a new procedure, I tell them that I am reviewing the document and use it for a starting place about the "pain issue/vague general terms about a previous horrible experience"  Most doctors respect my pro-active stance. I also had a doctor I trusted to write a letter. which I also carry with me, detailing the steps to take to manage my pain effectively...(Patient has allergy to this and that mediation,  and is not responsive to thus and such medication for pain, this has worked in the past..patient denies substance abuse etc etc..).  I have about ten specialists right now and they all have a copy of my advance directive.  And it doesn't really come into play unless I am unconscious, but it does have documentation for my chart about what I want and need and expect from my doctor. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING that deviates from that, they get another copy, as does the patient right advocate/hospital ombudsman. They get pretty sick of hearing from me...but it's effective.  As for not utizing medical care because of it, I find that this helps me advocate for myself.  I also asked for a referral to a pain management doc...they can do all kinds of localized pain treatments that don't involve oral medication. I went to one outside my health system for an original consult, so that my regular doctors would not be "tipped off" and start acting like I was a drug addict or something....I got copies of my medical records to take to the pain doc, and told them that if I decided to go with their plan I would sign a release for them to talk to my doctors. It was worth the privacy to me to go out of network. Any doc that puts up a fuss about what I have on my advance directive gets a pink slip. I have been to a formerly owned catholic hospital and have some end of life choices on my AD that don't jive with the catholic party line, and the docs have to deal with it. I also wrote a letter to their ethics committee (not the proper grievance procedures but I didn't care) about some lack of pain med issues...I ripped apart their "values statement"  in my letter, and detailed my experience. I got a response back saying that they would retrain their docs. It wasn't much but at least it's something. I get treated very well now because they know I have a big mouth....I am nice, and professional, but ask a few well placed questions and give a very detailed account of how my experience did not live up to their mission statement. (and I don't use the most traumatic thing, but one like getting dropped off a gurney in the elevator is pretty up there, so I use that one instead....I save the worst ones for the doctors licensing board....even if I do this in chunks, and not all at once, but a little at a time,I get my resilience back, and feel like I am doing something to protect myself and then I feel less vulnerable. I also use chocolate to say thank you to the people who DO do the right thing, and am just as vocal with my gratitude. I have a lot of "allies" now, various nurses and medical coordinators who help me out and intervene on my behalf with doctors and have substantiated my complaints about hospital care. It seems to help. Good luck.

Thanks for the suggestions.  I have advanced directives but I don't have anything regarding pain management in it.  I'll check into that.  And having one of my doctors write a letter sounds like a good idea.

Thinking of you and hope it goes well.

I've had problems with anesthesia (waking during pre-op, paralyed, suffocating, not able to communicate) which I definitely stressed about.  I made sure that any subsequent surgeons knew about the incident and have never had a problem since.

I know that trust, once lost, is difficult to regain.  Especially if you are seeing different doctors.  But definitely voice your concerns before any procedure, because that is your best defense.

You are always such a strong advocate of self-determination, I'm sorry to hear that you are still suffering so.