Pain Clinic Follow Up
[ Tuesday July 18th 2017 at 9:12 am ]
A few days ago I had a phone call from the regional pain clinic. They left me a phone message. I was a asleep at the time they called. I just listened to the phone message.
My family doctor attended a presentation by the head of the pain clinic in November 2016. When the presentation ended my family doctor approached the head doctor of the pain clinic to ask how to assist me. At the time my family doctor had a hypothesis that I was suffering a severe case of tendinitis in my knee joints. A nerve block procedure would allow the pain component of this to go away and perform the exercise needed to work through this.
The pain significantly worsened by February 2017. A nerve block was no longer an option. In reality the MRI imagining of my knee joint performed on June 19th 2017 disproved my family doctor's hypothesis. It is significantly more serious with various tears occurring in my knee joints and usual blood flow in my knee joint.
On April 8th 2017 I notified the pain clinic doctor through their secure "contact" form that the nerve block was no longer medically warranted. I went on to summarize my discharge from physiotherapy as I had not made progress. Then I posed the question if a stem cell knee transplant would be appropriate treatment. This message was never acknowledged.
I've just prepared a short letter to the pain clinic responding to their recent phone call. I kept a copy of my April 8th 2017 correspondence and offered to fax this if it got lost. Then I reiterated the nerve block procedure isn't medically warranted. I finished my letter expressing an interest to learn more about a knee stem cell transplant procedure. However I haven't completed all the imaging the local hospital radiologist recommended in the MRI imaginging report. I need to be working with a full set of facts when making decisions about my health care.
I am interested to learn more about a knee stem cell transplant. Then I would need to do my own risk verses rewards assessment to decide if this is something I want to pursue. I don't have the financial means of paying for this. $3,500 CAD per knee isn't covered by my the Province of Ontario's health care coverage for a stem cell transplant. I do know there are periodically studies in place where fees are waived. Perhaps a long term study could be obtained in exchange for performing this procedure on my knee joints.
However I need to foot note my comments about a stem cell transplant that my highest priority in life has shifted. My disability pension isn't keeping up with the actual cost of inflation. It is becoming serious. I must spend time developing my youTube channel and building a diversified online income if I am going to have money for food in a year from now. I am not wanting to engage in more treatment unless when this round of imaging is completed produces a result which is life threatening. I am content to continue using the pool for exercise. But ultimately I need to treat it as a holding pattern. I haven't made progress in 11 months. It has been quite the opposite. I can't walk more on my own. My knee joints have deteriorated too much. Now what I am feeling is similar to my hip joints did just before I lost the use of them.