I feel all progress has been stripped away due to miscommunication with my doctor

Need Support

August of 2025 my doctor suggested I would make a great candidate for medical marajuana due to all my existing ailments. I was then taken out if work and I live in NY where its legal. I started smoking but did not have it prescribed by a medical dr. I guess I didn’t/ don’t understand the difference. When I went back for my 3 month visit my urine showed I had marajuana in my system. my dr. immediately started weaning me off my meds that Ive been on for 23 years. I have had 3 back surgeries. I have metal cages and wedges in my back. Hardware in my ankle. I have “proven” degenerative/ bulging discs in low back and neck along with extreme advanced arthritis. My last back surgery in 2017 my dr. “knicked” a nerve Which left my right foot completely paralyzed. Due to having no control of my foot, unable to spread toes, bend my toes, feel my foot, I began tripping over it which led to an ankle fusion in 2023. I’m now being told I need a hip replacement and currently have a pinched nerve in my neck causing extreme pain and numbness down right arm into thumb and finger. I go to physical therapy twice a week. My main concern is that because I smoked, which she basically planted the idea in my head but never said if I took that route she would take me off the meds which my former physician (retired) and I took 20 years to get to a point of where I actually had quality of life. I understand now that it could have been lethal smoking giving the meds I was on and immediately stopped. She didn’t care. I was on (3) 1 mg of Clonazapam a day for 14 years and I was taking (4) 10 mg of methadone a day and told by multiple drs. Including my current physician, that I will be on it the rest of my life for pain treatment. After 23 yrs I finally found correct doses that worked for me. Now because I gave my first ever “dirty” drug test, I took my last .25 mg tablet of Clonazepam which I take for extreme anxiety and depression yesterday and my Dr refuses to put me back on or even tell me why because I smoked that suddenly I’m “cured?” She left me at (3) 5mg of methadone as my pain is real and there is evidence (mri’s, x-rays, surgeons, physical therapist, hematologist, and rheumatologist, and therapists) all showing my symptoms are real and severe. I’m now going through extreme withdrawal from the Clonazapam as I believe she weaned me off way too fast given the dose and amount of years I’ve been on it and the methadone is barely touching the pain. My body has grown a tolerance to the methadone so going from 40 mg to 115 mg is not effective My doctor put me on cymbalta, which I heard my body will become dependent on and I expressed my concerns to my Dr yesterday but she didn’t offer an alternative even though I told her I’m not going to take it. She lowered my pain meds with no other alternative to attack the pain. She doesn’t refer to me as an addict but realizes my body has become dependent on these medications. I haven’t smoked marajuana since she told me taking the meds and smoking could have been fatal and after I went home and researched, she is 100% correct. now I don’t know how #1 to handle the withdrawal from both meds and #2 what to do for pain. If I look for a new dr. I’m afraid I’ll be looked at like a drug seeker but I just want to get my quality of life back. any advice?

Posted Apr 7, 2026, 11:19 AM UTC

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