"No Empathy"

I contacted the practice after a visit to the ED department, with extreme pain in the neck and shoulder, this experience was immensely worrying.

The GP practice I was referred to via the ED dept thought that I may have a torn shoulder muscle, and should be referred to the shoulder Doctor, also, that my pain relief should be reassessed.

I called Starlane Medical Centre and asked if the referral could be expedited because of the severe pain, I was told that it would be a 12-week wait, as my symptoms were not severe enough and the vetting process would not allow this, this was frustrating as the pain at that time was unbearable.

I went on to ask about pain relief and what could be done, I'm on 300mg of Gabapentin 3 times a day which wasn't helping, the doctor told me that if that's not helping there's nothing more that can be done.

This was what I found the most surprising and disappointing part of this exchange; there was no advice or help given to control the pain, just nothing more would be tried and no further advice was given, even though I was in so much pain.

Where does that leave me as a patient?

Told that nothing could be done and to wait in pain for weeks, I felt that there was a serious lack of empathy.

I've looked up Gabapentin and found it can take weeks to work, I had only been taking it for 6 days, he could have said maybe wait and see, or offered to start something else.

Because of this, I've had to start experimenting to see which painkillers work, but I am conscious of taking things like codeine for too long

It would be nice to have a professional to talk to regarding this.