After several weeks, Patricia, who asked us not to use her full name says, the process to find a new doctor, and getting help is only getting worse. She’s like others we’ve talked to outside of the pain clinic where Dr. John Couch, and Dr. Xiulu Ruan worked.

“We’ve been here twice,” said Sandra Brown.

Now there’s growing concern that patients with the doctors are being blacklisted. Sandra Brown said she’s made a lot of calls.

“I only found one that was nice, and I went down the phone book,” said Brown.

Others told us because of the DEA investigation not all of their records are being released, which is holding up the process to find a doctor. In the meantime, the wait to find help is disrupting how people go about their lies.

“I mean I have a two year old,” said Patricia.

From picking up her daughter, to the rigors of being a chef, Patricia says it can hurt. Yet, she thinks, she may still have it easier than others who cannot function without medication.

“Some of the drugs are very dangerous to come off, cold turkey,” said Virginia Guy with the Drug Education Council.

Virginia Council told us, her office receives dozens of calls a week for help. For some, detox could bring some relief.

“There are some detox facilities we can try to get them connected to and there’s also some treatment centers,” said Guy.

But Guy says many just need help finding a doctor… And she says something like this has happened before.

“When all of the facilities particularly on the Mississippi Coast blew away we got a lot of people coming over in our community that were in a similiar situation.”

Now it could take months for the community to recover… Patricia hopes she’ll find relief sooner that that. She’s expanded her search for doctors to more than 100 miles away. She’s still waiting to hear back.