Daycamp, keep good notes in your pain diary! Bextra takes 1-2 weeks to work to reduce inflammation and it may or may not help your pain. Your PM doc is being conservative and that is not a bad thing. The doc is assessing the minimum amount of meds you can get by on.

Vicodin ES is 7.5/750 so beware of the APAP.
Keep the diary and if the Vicodin ES is not enough, do let him know. He/she sounds willing to work with you.

Congrats on finding a willing doc.