You need to find a new doctor!
This doctor (term used loosely) is not doing you any favors by providing access to refills without doing the lab work.
Something as common as Acetaminophen can be deadly.
Without the blood work you could unknowingly damage your liver beyond repair.
That is why some medications must be monitored.
Over the counter drugs are not safe either.
You need a doctor that cares about you and will work with you to find solutions.
Do you live in a small rural area where access to doctors is limited?

its all about phraseing your questions.

you want to let the doctor explain why certain procures are better than others but you also want to make sure he/she knows that you have researched things on your own and have questions about specific things.... there have been a few alternative procures i have gotten because i asked about them... also if i know when i need lab work for certain things i can just ask the general practitioner to put lab work in and get the results and find out if we needed to rush any of my after care with other doctors.

once you have done the bulk of the work its just a few min a week of keeping track and maybe a bit of time now and then doing research as you have time.

when you talk to the doctors you have to be of the attitude that there advice is what you value but you have some questions about alternatives or that you have heard about yyy procedure and were wondering about there opinion about it.

if the doctors do not want to discuss things with you then you need to change doctors.

Whauww!
Brilliant morale boosting, mikey159b

Let me try to explain a bit about how it is in my country,
even as it is hard to explain how our Health system works,
and the Finnish one may even be different from the Danish.

Our health insurance is paid by taxes - 7% of our taxable income gives us "free" health care.
All health care used to be public.
The state ran all the hospitals; we could choose those; the nearest, mind you. Period.
Now we can choose any one countrywide that we think will be best - but how to compare?
We also have private ones as well now. It was a struggle no end for them to get a foothold.
In case the waiting list is long enough for public hospitals,
we can get a referral to a private one get treatment paid by the public system.
At all times we can go private if we pay out of our own pocket,
and the insurance industry offer a wide range of products covering private treatments.

General Practioners always ran private clinics, but it is in fact a make-believe.
99.9% of their services are covered by a contract with our National Health Care System.
Only special things such as vaccination against yellow fever, and such you pay directly out of your own pocket.

You can choose any GP within a certain distance from your home
- and further away if the GP agrees
- a question of driving time compensation listed in their contracts if home visits are needed.
The GP clinics decide for themselves how many patients they want to admit,
so finding the doctor you think will help you the best and be admitted into his/her clinic
can be a lenghty process. By and large, doctors are well educated and willing to do their best,
but it's my experience that you have to apply a commitment of your own and work with them.
They don't know everything - each patient is a new history altogether - and they are often overworked.

The Internet has provided the patient with information
- good and poor mixed in one big heap - hitherho unavailable,
and it's my experience that informing yourself is to your advantage.
However, it should never be presented to your doctor in a know-all-manner.
The purpose should always be to work together to reach the best possible results,
and most are interested in doing just that.
Involving oneself in ones health care is a relatively new thing for us Danes.
Doctors were gods, and you never questioned anything.
I felt quite blasphemic once I meekly protested the surprising intention of amputating my leg
- I was just 25 and admitted with a bad menisc after a dislocation .... my desire to save my leg made me "naughty".

When I lived in Rhode Island, I feared to fall ill, because I was helpless as to how I should go about it
coming from a cradle-to-grave welfare society even as I had an insurance bought in Denmark.

I have been to a public emergency clinic there with my mother when she arrived with swollen legs
after the transcontinental flight. They charged nothing. That was puzzling for me, too.
I think you Americans' "fear" of "socialized" medicine is comparable to my "fear" of "private" medicine.
We also had my ex taken to the hospital in the middle of the night -
having to wake up the volunteer ambulance crew was a little embarrassing -
and he was well taken care of in the hospital, and the bills we paid were refunded by our insurance.
All attempts to secure an American Health Insurance were in vain, tho.
For a long, long time the New York State Worker's Compensation paid for his chiropractor treatments
after a back injury at work - something we would have to pay most of ourselves in Denmark.

In the EU we have certain rights for getting treatment in other member countries, but - at least in my country -
the public system is not always on your side, and the rules are shrouded in cloudiness
to put it mildly - and plenty complicated as well
so you would have to study for weeks to find out what your rights might be.

Healt Care is complicated.

Actually, health care there isn't that different from here. However, on to your situation which is far more important. It sounds like you have two herniated or damaged disks in your spine. The disks keep enough room between the vertebrae to allow the nerves inside to go out to various parts of the body. I haven't read anything that indicates you have paralysis or such nerve damage. With the damaged disks, the nerves there don't have the room they need and are compressed where they exit the spine and that is the cause of the intense pain in other parts of your body. I would say the first thing you want is to address the pain. That will allow you to recuperate physically and mentally so that you can move on to address the problem disks. Perhaps you could try something fairly simple - inversion. When you are standing, gravity is pulling your spine down increasing pressure on those nerves due to the damaged disks. The pain sounds a bit less laying down. Take that further to where gravity is working for you. Start by trying laying down on an incline with your feet higher that your head. There are tables that you strap your feet into, lay against and then turn upside down.