Impatient Idealist

I was just going to suggest a nurse-practioner. I suffered for years while a doctor (Male, for what it's worth) swore he could find nothing wrong with me & just kept giving me increasingly high doses of pain-killers and muscle-relaxers. He was a good doctor & he had an appropriate amount of sympathy, but deep down I always felt like he didn't really believe or understand how much pain I was in. Finally, a friend steered me to a nurse-practioner who worked with me really hard to find some type of relief. We settled on a combination of a (rather mild) muscle relaxer, major dietary changes, some specific exercises, and some "mental imagery" work. I know it sounds a little "new agey" and goofy, but it actually helped me a lot. I am not totally pain-free by a long shot, but it is definitely managable - and more importantly, at least for me, was finding someone who took me really seriously and made the commitment to working with me.

So this is my rather long way of saying: I strongly second the idea of finding a nurse-practioner (or a dietician or another doctor or a voodoo priestess, if necessary) to work with you to figure out what will work for you individually. Don't feel guilty about dumping your doctor - he may be a wonderful, skilled doctor but he's not helping YOU. I really don't know if it's a male thing or a "doctor" thing but I think he's just not taking you seriously enough and he either just doesn't have the time or he doesn't have the inclination to "think outside the box" which is what you need after all this time. You've been suffering too long!!