Thats how my insurance company works too. I could only get so many hydro's and so many refills per year or something. Well, after surgery, the pain did go away for a while, but has since returned and now I just use my OP and forget about my insurance company and primary doctor completely. He gave me SEVEN 5/500 hydro's for 'emergency' pain and then a regular rx for Ultram. So, I just gave up and went the OP way. No way 5/500 was going to touch the pain I was in. I'd have to take at least 2 or 3 of them to get any relief at all.