Well, here's an update (been out of town for the weekend). The doctor ended up calling us and really working hard to make things better. She had a long conversation with my wife about finding out exactly what her goals are, and then gave her the appropriate prescriptions. They also worked out a schedule so that my wife can see her sooner rather than later. Apparently the nurse who we had so much trouble with had gone to the doctor and explained everything, including (to my surprise) her own unacceptable treatment of my wife and I over the phone. She told the doctor she'd been having a bad week and had taken it out on us. It counts for a lot in my book that she did that- the doctor came to us apologizing before we even brought it up and told us the nurse had been reprimanded.

This still doesn't fix some of the issues like failure to return phone calls and "punishments" of reducing medication, but now we're on the right track and they seem to be trying to work with us.

My wife had a much better weekend and was very careful not to take meds unnecessarily. She was still in pain, but not unmanageable this time.

So all in all, we're finally making some progress. I wish it hadn't gotten to this point and there's still a long way to go, but at least we had a good weekend- and that counts for a lot.

Thanks everyone for the support. Reading down through this thread reminded me how much for granted I take my own health. With all of our medical advances, there's still so little we can do about many of these health issues.