No one wants to take responsibility

Im currently on suboxone many yrs prior i was hydro 5/7.5 i have spinal stenosis and bulging disc and was told i need lumbar fusion. Im type 2 diabetic and surgeon wants my A1C in better range before the fusion. They put surgery out 4 months docs involved what to give pain meds. What do i do?

If I am your friend, and I would like to think that me taking the time to try and give you an answer means that I am, then my first advice is pay much more attention to your diabetes. If your A1C is high enough the spinal surgeon refuses to operate, then I suspect it is above 9. As bad as pain is in running your life, the diabetes is much more likely to end it. For reasons that extend way beyond your need for potentially function enhancing back surgery, I need the fact that you are a type 2 diabetic to become more urgent to you.

One of the reasons that, at my clinic, we manage primary care first and pain only if we manage your primary care is that the health issues that plague you are going to make managing your pain a nightmare. We know that no one in pain gives a rat's butt about an A1C while they are in pain, but the problem is that your uncontrolled diabetes is making your pain twice as bad.

It is a weird situation, while I can't guarantee that fixing your A1C will fix your pain, I can declare with great certainty that NOT having it controlled is a four alarm fire.

Now, there is a complicating factor - somehow you are on suboxone. In the 170 characters my question script gives, I know you didn't have time to explain why you are are now managed with this but very few providers are going to add other opioids to that. My suggestion is to ask your Suboxone prescriber to go up on your strips or tabs. If you are on it for SUD, then make your request about your pain is making it hard to maintain sobriety. If you are on it because it is the only pain medicine your provider will give you, then explain that your diabetes is making more pain more severe while you wait to have this surgery and "These are the things I am doing to help get my diabetes under control as soon as possible."

Last warning/advice. If you can only list what your PROVIDER is doing for your diabetes and the medicines they are prescribing, then you have just discovered why your diabetes is out of control. Primary management of your diabetes begins at the dinner table. I love you #nobuts