Degenerative Discs and constant pain

You have to learn to manage your own pain, I have had this for 30+ years, and gone through a decompression, a spinal fusion, various injections, a spinal stim trial,all kinds of drugs, at present on Naproxen and Gabapentin, plus diazepam for spasms.

I am in the same condition that I was thirty years ago, so have gone through all these painful pricedures for nothing really.

Excercise, as much as you are able, to strengthen your muscles, even small amounts and try to build it up.

The doctors don't always have any answers, although I think you should go and see the consultant.

Yes most definitely, just explain your on a waiting list but you pain is debilitating yr can not afford to wait that long, ur quality of life is terrible and it's affyyou mentally ( if this is the case) ask if you can be referred to a private hospital via the nhs you have every right to do 'this, if your doctor says no he needs to have a very good reason for doing so . I e done this and never looked bck, the neurosurgeon I see at the private hospital via nhs is brilliant from my first app to now . ( waiting on a operation) has took only 12 wks as I've had MRI s and spinal blocks in between. I believe al be operated on before march . (Spinal fusion). Yet the rheumatologist said there was no nerve compression (neurosurgeon disagrees i e also seen MRI. Rheumatologist said my debilitating bck pain and degenerative diease could be managed with physo and pain relief . (What a joke) I can't even sit up right i I've spent the last 3-4 month lie Down . Honestly always say what u want from yr health care professionals never let them tell u what they want. My new consultant gave me options and out comes and told me to choose what I wanted . He said we don't say right this is what's going to happen, sign here. He said yr the patient ull tell me what Ud like from the options available. Good luck . U could always email yr hospital pals complaint s and explain how desperate you are and that u can't wait as long as they say .

I would go back and ask your doctor to hurry things along, my doc is brilliant when it comes to this, also your upper back pain is probably a result of lower back pain, you've been suffering a long time now so your posture will be affected even the way you stand and hold yourself, youl be all tenses up and after a while your spine will feel the pressure, I would recommend you go see a chiropractor, I did and he was a god send, it took a few sessions at first but I could barely walk or stand up and he sorted me out, he also explained so much to me about how the spine works and it all made sense, good luck and let me know how it goes 😊

So i went back to the doctors today as i was up for most of the night again with the pain, i'll be honest he was very helpful and actually gave insight into the problem [whereas a lot of the times it was a simple "here take these" off another doctor].

?What he's done is sent a letter to the specialist to try and hurry things along as my conditions have gotten worse since the scan and also given me the next level up tablets as a trial for a month.  If after a month there is still zero affect from them, he said to go back and he'll look at upping the dosage. 

?Doctors in my area tend to get a bit of a bad reputation as people who just shrug you off but in all honesty, this one was very kind and considerate about the pain i was in. Was very happy with it, now just got to wait for the specialist and hope these pain killers do something to ease it off a bit until then.