DEAR MORPHINE ADDICT!

[This is a fake letter to me -- one I would receive if I moved from here to DC, had MS (I gave myself a more well-established disorder/disease to put too-fine-a-point on the idiocy I have to deal with), and was treated the way I am being treated by the folks at at Quack Pain Clinic (I didn't want to call it a pain management clinic for obvious reasons) here in Lummox, Jesusland. -Ed.]

Dear new patient,

We understand you just moved to Washington, DC. Congratulations, and thank you for making an appointment with Quack Pain Clinic!

We also understand that you were previously diagnosed with MS.

However, we at QPC simply do not trust your doctors from Lummox (or any doctors from small towns). It is standard medical practice for physicians not to recognize nor accept the hard work of others in their profession and, more so, specialty.

The doctors who diagnosed you with, and began your treatment for, MS may have been wrong. So, of course, the only rational course of action is to begin from square one.

Below is what you will need to do.

1: STOP TAKING EVERY MEDICATION YOU'RE CURRENTLY USING!

If you go through withdrawal because of this, see if you can get into an ER. Most importantly, though, your withdrawal will confirm you're nothing but a drug addict and, with 100 percent certainty, seeking only drugs from this practice, and not relief from your symptoms (which may or may not be MS-related).

The drugs you are on now were prescribed by other doctors from a small town that is in another state! We do things differently here, and so you need to stop taking everything you were told to. Especially the Morphine and Klonopin which, we understand, are the only things that alleviate your breakthrough pain and anxiety.

ESPECIALLY: Since you were diagnosed with MS, the progression of which is slowed or halted by Avonex, you will need to stop taking this immediately. The main symptom of MS -- the relapse of demyelinization in the brain and spinal cord -- which is prevented by the Avonex you currently take WILL NOT, FOR WHAT MAY TAKE FIVE YEARS, BE TREATED BY THIS PRACTICE. We need to be sure you are not an Avonex-seeker. Your condition may become markedly worse during this time.

Please understand our misgivings regarding your former doctors, and our suspicion that you are nothing but a junkie.

We simply cannot take chances with our insurance, nor with the attorney general.

2. See a psychologist and a psychiatrist. Whatever you have -- even if it is MS -- almost surely has its root cause in emotional trauma. Please do not search the Web for scholarly articles or studies that back this up, because you won't find them. Rest assured that we know what is best for you.

3. See a physical therapist. Because it is almost impossible for you to move, and because doing so causes you agony and exhausts you in a matter of minutes, it is incredibly important that you do some kind of workout for at least 30 minutes per day, as though you have no disease/disorder whatsoever.

4. We will follow up in one year if the above people can't help you because, perhaps, emotional trauma is not the only cause of what ails you, and the pain of physical therapy has yielded no gains.

5. At that point, we will have to weed out Spinal Cord compression, Stroke, Acute Disseminated EncephaloMyelitis (ADEM), Lyme disease, Sub-Acute Sclerosing Panencephalitis, Neurosyphilis, Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Cerebral Arteritis, Complicated Migraine, Diabetes, Hypothyroidism, Myasthenia Gravis, Acute Transverse Myelitis, Herpes Simplex Encephalitis, Polyarteritis nodosa, Sjogren syndrome, Behcet's syndrome, Sarcoidosis, Paraneoplastic syndromes, neuromyelitis optica (Devic's syndrome), HIV-associated myelopathy, Adrenomyeloneuropathy, other Myelopathy, Spinocerebellar syndromes, Hereditary Spastic Paraparesis, Guillian Barre Syndrome, Polymyositis, Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, Parkinson's Disease, Cerebral Haemorrhage, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Mononeuritis, Huntington's Disease, Post-Infectious Encephalitis, Arteriovenous Malformations, Arachnoid Cysts, Arnold-Chiari Malformations, Cervical Spondylosis, and many more.

We will confirm or rule these out one at a time.

6. Then, if your diagnosis of MS is definitive -- perhaps in two to three years (though almost certainly longer), which it took your doctors in Lummox to diagnose and treat improperly -- you will be prescribed aspirin for your pain. Work with your psychologist and psychiatrist on your resentment toward our practice, and on any other MS symptoms with your physical therapist. This will be the extent of your treatment.

7. Please keep in mind that 1/3 of our patients have gotten 50 percent better on this protocol. (This has nothing to do with the fact that about 1/3 of people respond positively to placebos -- anything -- and these people report roughly 50 percent improvement).

8. If you seek a second opinion, we will be sure this other doctor hears about you from us before your visit. This is our policy with all drug seekers.

Finally, welcome to Quack Pain Clinic. Thanks to our policy, above, you will find that we are your only option! Should you survive the withdrawal from the various medications you are now on, we look forward to seeing you!

Sincerely,

Theducksays Quack, MD, and everyone at QPC

Mixx it!