Help and positivity needed

[bookworm1111]

hi im new to this. ive had back pain with severe sciatica since december 2017. i had shown some improvement but wasnt completely better so was offered a caudal epidural which made me worse. my physio thinks i treated it like a trauma and went into muscle spasm. i struggle to stand and walk now, the only painrelief is lying down. please has anyone else gone through this, i just need to hear that someone else had this but improved. i just need some hope that my predicament isnt permanent.

[Jezt52]

Been there, damaged my spine in 1992, finally moved to prescription painkillers in 2012 after many years of overdosing on over the counter meds. Had a causal epidural carried out in 2016.

Now, it took a couple of months to be effective but after the first couple of weeks the pain of the epidural itself had faded. Still on prescription painkillers and probably will be for a very long time. However, talk to your doctor or pain management consultant to see if it is safe for you to increase the dosage of your meds to get you over this rough period. I was lucky in that i have Oramorph on prescription and could just increase that.

Since then, I've managed to stop Naproxen (1000mg/day) and reduce my isage of Oramorph. Still on 5 other meds but that's life !

Good luck and all the best for the future.

[johnsmith]

Have you seen a chiropractor yet?

[bookworm1111 in reply to johnsmith]

saw an osteopath before i got worse so i wonder was it them that made me worse. i then saw a chiropractor ( family member so awkward) who went on about some weird fad maple detox which i cant understand how that can help a bad back. now working with physio and the hospital route. everyone has someone who thinks there osteo/chiro/physio is the best and solved their problem that never know which route is the right way to go so blindly following the nhs route at the mo as fear anyone making it worse.

[johnsmith in reply to bookworm1111]

Thanks for the reply. You are right about the nightmare of who is the right person to treat your issue. You rely very heavily on the ability of the person who sees you.

I have several treatment regimes running in parallel because one regime by itself in my case will not work.

I have learnt that NHS physios tends to be one size fits all.

Google "Thomas Myers" you may find what has to say interesting.

[bookworm1111 in reply to johnsmith]

thank you for your help, i will have a look into him. fingers crossed it can give me some hope

[Sazntef]

Have you had x-ray of mri to investigate what is causing the pain? Hopefully if they find the cause you can get a little more help here on what has helped people with that particular diagnosis. There are countless methods of reducing pain for which you just need to find the right combination that helps you. Diet can actually have a big impact on pain. For arthritis and other lower back or joint pain it can help to avoid white potatoes, cut out gluten, cut out dairy.

Hydrotherapy, massage, TENS machine, pilates, yoga, biomechanic, pain linic, Alexander technique, so many more options that you could try. Make sure and let us know what the results of the investigation into the cause of your pain is.

[bookworm1111]

hi ive had an xray and 2 mris month ago. nothing said about the xray but the first mri showed the l4-l5 disc had ruptured which is when she said she'd operate but a week prior to op she did another mri which showed the ruptured bits had gone and bulge wasnt as bad. but that my l5-s1 had bulged again (it had caused me problems in 2016) so was offered the caudal injection instead which since had this have got worse. thanks for your suggestions, theres a few ive not tried there or even heard of (alex, bio or linic). will wait for meeting with consultant but will go with these suggestions to see what she says. thanks for messaging me back

[Ka_Lynn]

Ask your doctor about an inversion table. If you can do a slight inversion without doing any more damage, tgat may help you. It helped me. Will keep you in my prayers that you get relief.