I can only relate my experiences with helping my mother who is almost eighty and is in chronic pain from degenerative arthritis and a close friend of mine who has had multiple surgeries to remove bone from his hip from several tumors and probably tell you who NOT to see. I agree with your statement about the pain doctor at the bone and joint clinic - his two nurses are like the nazi gestapo standing guard to the doctor - I would not want to deal with them either. Dr. Kiser in Muscle Shoals is a wonderful doctor and very thorough, but he will not treat any kind of pain issues. I'm not really sure why, since he is a family/geriatric specialist, but he makes his patients sign a waiver that they understand he does not prescribe pain medicine for any reason. Dr. Young in Florence (bone and joint clinic) did a knee replacement for my mother and is a VERY good surgeon, but, he also will not address her pain issues following her surgery - even though he has said that her other knee has now degenerated to the point of bone on bone and agrees that she is in severe pain. Dr. Bartmess, also in Florence, is not a good doctor to see for any kind of pain, either. He told my mother, who is almost eighty, that he would not prescribe any pain medicine for fear that she might become addicted. At her age, with no history of addiction, I would think that living her last years pain free would be more important than the negative impact on her quality of life that she is now enduring.
Hope you find someone who can help you - unless you have pain yourself or know someone who does, you do not understand how hard it can be to live with such a burden.
If you have good insurance and the means to get there, you might look to the Huntsville or Birmingham area if you cannot find a doctor locally.