After so much fighting for proper treatment, I finally sat down with the UC Davis Health Pain Management team on June 16th, 2025. This was the first time they’d seen me. The meeting was clear, professional, and surprisingly human — and I learned a lot about what my providers could have been doing all along.

Most notably, they confirmed something I’ve been saying since the beginning: I’ve run out of non-opioid options.

That’s not just my opinion — that’s documented by the UC Davis pain management team. I’ve been placed on nearly every option UC Davis has recommended: gabapentin, Celebrex, physical therapy, behavioral health, duloxetine, and — most troubling of all — a long stretch on buprenorphine products that have repeatedly caused side effects like dizziness, blood pressure drops, and blackouts.

There are no new options on the table. None. And still, the medication that has worked for years — oxycodone — is kept at a level that leaves me suffering despite NOT even being at the medically unsafe levels. Wouldn’t anyone want to maximize a medication first before fusing the remainder of someone’s spine? Do they realize that the surgery itself is extremely dangerous and will leave my entire spine immobilized coupled with my t2-S1 fusion after telling them this fifty times? It feels like they care more about a policy than the patient, that is the real concern for everyone that visits UC Davis Health. It seems to be a widespread systemic issue that basically leaves any doctor there unable to practice medicine safely for patients. Putting patients in harm for policy is not defensible, justified, ethical or appropriate.

The most frustrating part? The doctors in this visit were respectful. They treated me like a person. They didn’t rush. They didn’t accuse. When the topic of Dr. Davis’s “suspected OUD” note came up, the fellow looked surprised — even smiled awkwardly and said something close to, “We won’t be putting anything like that in the notes.” Likely because they’re not addiction specialists — and they know better than to diagnose a patient without evidence and why would they want to without a motive?

The fact that Dr. Davis put that label in my referral — without an evaluation, without training, without ever discussing it with me — shows what this was really about. It doesn’t feel like it’s about safety. It seems to be about control.

She didn’t want to increase my pain medication, even though I was stable and compliant for years. And instead of just saying that, I feel she tried to create a reason — hoping a future psychiatrist would back her up with a diagnosis that could justify her treatment plan.

But pain management didn’t back her up.

They laid out the truth. There are no new options. I’m on the lowest functioning dose I can tolerate. The one thing that might help is the one thing no one seems willing to prescribe.

If this sounds familiar to you — if you’re a chronic pain patient being forced through the same system of quiet neglect — know this: you’re not imagining it. It’s happening. And it’s wrong.

My story isn’t over. But for once, someone told the truth. And I’ll be documenting every moment until this system changes.