Fairview University Med Center
1606 24th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN, United States
55454
1606 24th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN, United States
55454
No Phone Number Provided
http://www.fairview.org
Facility Affiliations
Dr. Miles J. Belgrade's Credentials
Education
- University Of Illinois At Chicago Health Science Center (Grad. 1982)
Insurance accepted by this Doctor
Other patients have successfully used these insurance providers, please call the Doctor's office to find out if your insurance plan is accepted.
Blue Cross / Blue Shield
Cigna
HealthPartners
Medicare
Workers Comp
Dr Belgrade treated me for severe chronic pain from nerve damage and myelin sheath erosion from diabetes. He suggested other ways of treating my pain and coping with it than using opioid pain medications and made as many reasonable alternatives available to me as he thought might benefit me. Only methadone was able to control my nerve damage pain and give me a good quality of life. We used the minimum amount required to control the pain.
Because we tried many other methods of pain controls such as biofeedback, acupuncture, relaxation, meditation, and TENS (transcutaneous nerve stimulation) as well as pacing, we knew that methadone was necessary. Methadone is a long lasting pain medication with a very long half-life and binds to the same receptor sites as are responsible for my kind of nerve pain and has been ideal to me. Gradually, I've been able to reduce the level methadone too as my nerve damage has healed. This has allowed me to take only half the dosage that I needed early on.
Dr. Belgrade made sure I was not using any other narcotic pain medicines or drinking with urine drug tests. The staff also makes sure I don't use more or less methadone than prescribed by carefully monitoring my usage. I have to sign a long-term opioid contract too which says that I'll try any treatments recommended and participate fully in psychological counseling and his multidisciplinary treatment method. I told him that I did not want to take such a high dose of methadone that my thinking became fuzzy and unclear. I love to write and have a blog with over 9,700 subscribers and more than anything that blog made it possible to get up in the morning even though I was often in severe pain. He understood that and talked to me long enough about our common interests in healthcare, medicine, and the sciences so that he knew I remained sharp mentally. Because we talked and go to know each other I realized gradually that he is an excellent listener and communicator too with a high level of empathy and patient understanding. He knew that I had become disabled because I had many other severe chronic illnesses making life very hard to manage. My lack of progress in levels of activity was not because of taking pain medication. My pain gradually declined from about an 8 level to about 3 or 4 and that made it possible for me to write and have a very important outlet for my creativity. Without his tremendous level of help in reducing my pain, I would have lost even my ability to write. He saved me because I could share my love of writing and making complex topics in science and medicine understandable. I was completely disabled, but still had that outlet on the world and the appreciation of the thousands of people who read what I posted. His way of working with me made me extremely willing to share and communicate about any difficulties I had. I felt at least this part of my life, the pain, was under control although several of my chronic illnesses remained huge challenges.
One of the greatest difficulties in taking any long-term opioid is the severe constipation that results from peristalsis, the progressive contraction and expansion of the transverse muscles in the bowels slowing down. He suggested using miralax, which brings extra water into the bowels, as a way to help me. It did. He provided helpful suggestion like this all through my seven years of being a patient with him.
Perhaps the most important other suggestion was in how to use my breakthrough pain medication, Vicodin. He said to be sure to regard this as something very special and to use it infrequently because if I used it less, it would be more effective when I needed it. If I found myself needed it too much and regularly to call and make an appointment because it showed that the other pain management techniques I had learned from him about meditation, relaxation, and pacing were not working well enough and that we would try to work through the issue and arrive at an approach through meeting.
I only lost him as a doctor when he moved on to work with injured soldier at the Veterans Administration. I was sorry to lose him because he is one of the most caring, kindest, and most knowledgeable physicians I have ever had.
Submitted March 2, 2017