Pain Management - Caution or Cruelty, the thought continues...

Back to pain! Partly because it never really goes away, and partly because I believe that if pain was managed properly, then addiction would not be the issue that it is. It is my Pharmacist, not my physician, who has helped me through this next 10 days by supplying me with a limted number of pills to use until my Doctor comes back from 10 days vacation. I hate to think what I'd be saying now if that wasn't the case, if my Nurse Practitioner and Pharmacist didn't go to bat for me. But then I probably wouldn't be saying anything, because I'd be in bed rotating packages of frozen vegetables around the most painful parts of my body. The other alternative to this is to sedate oneself out of the pain using gravol, or taking my sedative meds early. The kicker here is that I do have a semblance of a life, which includes my most marvelous, son who needs me to be here for him. I count and ration my pills,(It reminds me of Fagin in Oliver Twist counting his money) because if I have an appointment to attend and drive to, I may need more medication than I've got...so that has to come from another day that I have to then write off for functioning ie.walking the dogs or doing laundry or picking up groceries.  Instead I must  stay in bed...again. I am always robbing peter to pay paul. I feel more intensely about my pills when I'm always afraid I'm going to have a flare up and have no help for me which again affects Matt.
I get my limited number of pills for the month, and that's it...there's no room for flare ups, no room for getting me through laundry and cleaning day. So often, there are many thinks that don't happen unless I add my own little helpers to the mix, like Tylenol 1, 4 tabs Q 4 hours,plus a gravol...
I'm not surprised at the "stomach contents" list of dead celebrities...Were they killing themselves, or just taking one thing after another just to get relief that no one physician will give them. This is serious stuff...People are dying because of it, and I don't think they have to.
Why can't I get the maximum dose, and be relaxed in the notion that I have back up for flare ups, and  don't have to keep counting pills, because I'll have enough to deal with not only doing the shopping, but unloading it, and putting it away, and the two days of painful hell that follows it. It would be nice to have one less thing to worry about.