It eased a little for a week or two but has now launched an all out attack!! Since lunchtime yesterday I've been having frequent excruciating bouts of pain and can barely walk or even stand on times. Currently on a cocktail of morphine, diazepam and co-codamol but it's not very effective when pain is really bad.
Are there other types of pain killer availiable more suited to nerve pain? I'm going through a really bad patch at the minute, and with no end (at least for several more weeks) to this sciatica in sight am getting a little desperate - to put it mildly.
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wishbone
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OH has appalling sciatica, and has been struck down completely since December. Anyway, with much gentle persuasion he has been to GP and so on (very rare occurrence so must be bad) and tried out various painkilling cocktails of drugs - tramadol, codeine etc - and electric therapy and physio with little effect. So he's going back to GP next week to ask to try gabapentine and amitriptyline. No idea if that will be better but that's what several people have recommended. But of course you have to take your own docs advice.
Since december!!...and there's me thinking 8 weeks is a long time! Hope gabapentine and amitriptyline help him if prescribed.
GP upped morphine from 5 to 7.5ml, which has helped. Trouble is after about 2 hours pain gets really bad again. Was so bad for a time last that I couldn't walk at all. Will mention gaba and amit when I see GP
Don't know if this is helpful or not but a friend of mine (not an RD sufferer) who suffers with sciatica recently had a particularly bad time with it. The co-drydamol her GP prescribed for it wasn't helping & was worried how many she was taking & still not getting any relief. She couldn't physically get to the surgery because of the pain so had a GP home visit. He sent her to hospital where they tried all sorts of pain meds & nothing was helping. They were at the point of trying traction when another nurse came on duty & said she knew what will work & gave her an Econac suppository & once she was happy it was working sent her home with a supply. She can't believe the relief it's given her. Maybe worth a mention to your GP?
In so much last night that i phoned GP this morning. She advised me to go to A&E as they could deal with me better. What seemed to be a very knowlegable doc at A&E upped my pain relief (yet again) morphine from 7.5 to 10ml every 6 hours , diazepam from 2 to 4mg twice daily. Funnily enough he also prescribed diclofenic suppositories.
Would like to go into more detail as to what happened in A&E but have been feeling weak and nauseous since arriving back home a few hours ago, which is getting worse as i type... so need to sign off now. It's probably due all this darned pain relief.
Thanks heelsy, Nausea seems to have stopped (famous last words), but unfortunately i had another bad night.with sciatica. For whatever reason, it is now too painful to lay on my back (sitting has been a no no from day one) but can now stand/walk with relatively little pain???. The only other position I'm now getting some relief is by laying on my belly. Trouble is that, despite having a steroid inj a few weeks ago, my arthritic shoulders play up when doing so - hence part of the reason why I had a bad night.
Pain relief was/is not the reason why i was feeling unwell during my last post
t. I've been to out of hours and have been given antibiotics for yet another UTI - last one was in march/april, which along with another concern, doesn't look good for me starting on embrel I really can't believe the luck I'm having.
A&E would have investigated things further if i wasn't having MRI scan next friday. On a more positive note... what I call the jumps/jolts - sudden reflex muscle spasms in different parts of my body, are nothing to worry about... doc said they are caused by one or more of the pain killers i've been taking (he gave a name for them but can't remember what it was) which fit the bill as they began about the same time i started taking morphine/daizepam....some handy info to know i suppose, if someone enquires about them in the future....
I'm off to try to lay on my belly now, here's hoping......
Hope your nausea stays away & pleased you can at least move with less pain. I'm with you about recurring UTI's, but guess that just goes with the RD & generally being duff! I also get what you call jumps/jolts but mostly in my legs. Not happening so much lately & a recent post about RLS brought up the possibility of low VitD a few times & since I've been prescribed alendronic acid + AdCal-VitD I'm thinking it may be that the VitD is controlling mine.
Have you heard of NEUROVEEN (A Homeopathic Medicine)? It has no side effects and rlieves NervePain caused by Prolapsed Discs or Neuropathy and has NO SIDE EFFECTS.
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morphine from 7.5 to 10ml every 6 hours , diazepam from 2 to 4mg twice daily. 
Nausea seems to have stopped (famous last words), but unfortunately i had another bad night.with sciatica. For whatever reason, it is now too painful to lay on my back (sitting has been a no no from day one) but can now stand/walk with relatively little pain???. The only other position I'm now getting some relief is by laying on my belly. Trouble is that, despite having a steroid inj a few weeks ago, my arthritic shoulders play up when doing so - hence part of the reason why I had a bad night. 
My teacup is heavy :(
On Cimzia, CRP/ESR now near normal, so why are all my joints worse than ever? Anyone else had this?
Will my hands ever be able to clench again?
?sciatica
Arthritis is getting worse.
