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Back pain

Posted , 3 users are following.

lyn65518
lyn65518

i have osteoarthritis but for the last 6 months the pain is unbearable I have low back pain and over top of buttocks, pain in between shoulders neck pain flank pain, I just think I have something very serious wrong don't matter what I take I am in agony, I have had diclofenic gabapentin in am taking tramadol and even taken all three together but still nothing works. Ant ideas would be welcome

1 like, 6 replies

6 Replies

  • EileenH
    EileenH lyn65518

    Posted

    Follow this link to another thread on this site:

    https://patient.info/forums/discuss/pmr-gca-and-other-website-addresses-35316

    and then follow the link you will find in the first post. Read the information about polymyalgia rheumatica you will find there - there is also an entire forum on this site where you may find info but it is rather more mixed up than the links I've suggested. 

    Does anything you read there ring any bells for you? If it does, ask your GP to consider this as a diagnosis. Polymyalgia rheumatica can be a symptom of other things so they have several tests to do but it is your comment that ordinary pain killers don't help that suggests to me it may be that. It does, however, respond very well to prednisolone at moderate to low doses because the pain is caused by inflammation and the prednisolone combats the inflammation. If it is plain and simple polymyalgia rheumatica it is very disabling if untreated but not life-threatening.

    • lyn65518
      lyn65518 EileenH

      Posted

      Thank you I do have a lot of similar symptoms but in 2011 I did have pancreatitis, and even though I have been to my doctor and other doctors at the surgery they just don't do anything, I even had a cystoscopy done because they said it was my bladder I said you are looking in the wrong area, but they just don't listen, I have had an awful few months of extreme pain all,I want at this moment is just relief.
    • EileenH
      EileenH lyn65518

      Posted

      Try to change your GP if they aren't listening to you. I know it is probably easier said than done in the UK these days but be firm that you want some tests done - at the very least the blood tests ESR and CRP, although 1 in 6 PMR patients don't have raised levels. 

      Was your pancreatitis autoimmune in origin? That would make you more prone to developing another autoimmune disorder - and PMR is an autoimmune illness. Even them being willing to try a week of prednisolone at 15-20mg/day would rule PMR in or out - it is described in the paper there is a link to in the post, "Our approach to the diagnosis and treatment of PMR and GCA" by Quick and Kirwan. 

      If they gave you gabapentin they obviously must have considered fibromyalgia - it and PMR share some symptoms but fibro doesn't respond to pred and PMR does. It is worth a try if you can find someone who will help.

    • lyn65518
      lyn65518 EileenH

      Posted

      Yeah it's not easy to change doctors where I live it's quite remote and they have taken off public transport. I had a virus in 2011 and then my pancreas was inflamed that's all they said just stayed in hospital for 5 days. But I have had osteoarthritis for 18 years always been quite managble, had that planters fascinitis a little while ago for about 3 months now that has gone.
  • georgeGG
    georgeGG lyn65518

    Posted

    Recently I have had two different sorts of agony - agony that pain killers do not even touch. I can well believe that when Lyn says agony she means pain beyond endurance except what else is there but to endure. If she cannot get sympathy here on the forum there can be none to be had. But I sympathise. Recently I have suffered two different agonies. For different pains when multiplied in severity are different agonies. For me one was bladder spasms as a result of radio therapy for prostate cancer. Every time I passed water, that was every 15 to 30 miutes for 5 or so minutes on each occasion I was moaning and groaning with moaning-gasps and groaning-gasps in the most inhuman way and upsetting the whole household. It left me tense and gasping until the next time. Pain killers did not touch it nor did bladder relaxants. There was no relief in sleep for sleep was impossible. Frequent agony day and night. With Lyn it will not I expect be frequent but continuous and unremiting. 

    The other agony was related but different. I stopping being able to pass water. A&E to the rescue. Having a full bladder was painful. After four and a half hours it had long since become agony and by the time the nurse prepared her equipmet I was doing an involuntary sort of dance, my face contorted, lips pulled back in a rictus, my jaw opening and closing to some mindless rhythm. The nurse called it discomfort. Moments after the catheter slid into place with " oo    oo   oo" Cough the relief was bliss. Lyn will not get such relief from her agony. I doubt she would find 'discomfort' to be an adequate expression of sympathy.

    • lyn65518
      lyn65518 georgeGG

      Posted

      Thank god I have support from my sister she lives 3 hours away, but she has osteoporosis and we support each other every day, she just text me that she had to take 2 tramadol 2 co-codamol and a diazepan, it is always good to have support from non family people it really helps a lot and you don't feel so lonely.
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