please help me with pain management
Posted , 4 users are following.
sorry about typing in lower case only but laying flat and holding laptop with one hand.i am 62, retired but supply teaching, bulging disc at L3 /L4 have had a caudal epidural injectionprivately not that i believe in private med but was desperate. anyway ,day 5 and the injection has not worked yet. the actual local sedation should have taken some leg pain away for about 1 hour but that did not even happen . i have read that that suggests the injection and sedation were in the wrong place and so injection is unlikely to work on my leg pain either.exactly same symptons as libby above but i also cannot sit down, drive etc. in 4 weeks time , as a 3 generation family the 12 of us are going to lapland, my treat using my lump sum from teaching for 40 years,so, so, so, so sad. is there anyway i will be able to go with them all ?I am really desperate now .
0 likes, 8 replies
josephine32 gillian24263
Posted
So sorry to hear you are feeling so low and full of pain. You don't say why you didn't follow the NHS path which would include social care for someone in your situation. It is the general consensus that although the NHS takes longer, the care is no better going private. I can only advise to contact your local surgery and explain the situation to them, and you do know that if you are so incapacitated that you can no longer cope, then an ambulance call will take you to A&E for assessment and treatment. In either case, desperation is not ignored.
gillian24263 josephine32
Posted
thank you josephine32, nhs was taking too long , am still awaiting an appointment with the wessex msk triage team which my nhs doctor marked as urgent 3 weeks ago via email that he sent as i was hopping from one leg to the other. my husband and i had decided that if we heard nothing from that team within a week then we would go private. private was so quick, that is the only advantage and we have the holiday of a lifetime coming up with my grandchildren, however , the caudal epidural seems not to have worked we did go to a and e before going private because i was in so much pain one evening , they gave me diazepam 2mg as a stronger muscle relaxant than the one the nhs doctor had prescribed. it took me 5 weeks to get the very 1st appointment with my doctor and now we have just heard they are going to close our surgery by easter. after 40 yrs teaching, paying taxes, ni contributions etc i am getting nothing back as far as nhs concerned. i will go back to the surgery but even getting an appointment before we go to lapland 8th dec will be a feat in itself. thank you
lis10127 gillian24263
Posted
i feel your pain, i had/have 2 bulging discs L4/L5 and L5/S1. i was put on nortiptyline by my gp which helped with the pain enough for me to move around as i feel being inactive makes it worse. Explain the situation to your gp and see if he or she can help with pain control enough so that you can enjoy your holiday. I found as well as nortiptyline that ice packs helped, stretching (a physio could help). When the pain was really bad i purchased a heated belt on Amazon which heats up from your skin. I Wore it under my clothes and it helped massively. GOOD LUCK x
gillian24263 lis10127
Posted
thank you lis10127 yes, being inactive does make it worse, yes i will try going back to gp if i can and will see what he says about nortiptyline. at the moment i have diazepam 2mg as muscle relaxant and co codamol 30 for pain relief, neither help unless i am lying down which defeats the object really as i get relief lying down anyway. i take them at bedtime to get good night's sleep for about 6 hours. yes, i use ice packs , should i try physio or chiropractic?please explain how a heated belt helps as all disc sites say ice packs . thank you x
laura96939 gillian24263
Posted
Hi Gillian, were you diagnosed with bulging discs through MRI? I highly recommend going to a private physio or someone qualified to do deep sports massage asap at least 1-2 times weekly until your next app with th nhs anyway as well as getting an appointment with a gp. The only pain management that helps me is Amitriptyline and Naproxen but it does take a few weeks to get over the initial symptoms from the medication.
Ice packs are great but alternated with heat packs it can bring blood flow to the area and calm down inflammation.
lis10127 gillian24263
Posted
HI Gillian, codeine did noting for me except make me constipated! I never tried diazepam. My brother swears by Gabapentin for pain but obviously all these things have side effects and you have to wean yourself off them again. To me the trade off is worth it to have a bit of normality again. Nortiptyline doesnt work for everyone and i had to increase dose to 60mg over a few weeks before it worked. Ice packs helped me at times but i did find heat more comforting because i could use heated belt all day at work. Go on Amazon and theres a few to choose from. Best of luck x
lis10127 gillian24263
Posted
Laura's advice is great. Deep massage is excellent and she also mentions Naproxen which is good too. I also started doing Stuart McGills exercises from his book that I also got from Amazon. He suggests a lot of back extension which i know some physios don't like but it helped me massively. x
gillian24263
Posted
Thank you lis10127 and laura96939, Day 8 and I suppose the pain is not going to go away. I am somewhat resigned to not going to Lapland which actually makes me less sad because I have got used to that idea. The family still all want me to go though, I am not sure they realise what the pain is like. I have not been to the GP yet, so confused really. Two people, from experience, suggested an excellent lady practising different forms of healing and I had acupuncture yesterday . She could see things about my spine straight away that the doctors had not seen. Even my very skeptical husband who had to drive me but also insisted on coming in could see the realignment take place and even later on our own he still said yes he saw a difference. As well as the acupuncture She also did a light treatment as in heat I think.. She has hardly any slots left between now and the 7th December though. I don't think it has made any difference yet but these things take time. But what is confusing is that she wants me to move like a mermaid which obviously I was doing trying to get in and out of the car but that method of movement does not fit in with gentle physio where you raise your legs independantly of each other etc. As I write this I have just had a phone call giving me another appointment on Tuesday morning with the lady. I do have some Naproxen prescribed by a nurse practitioer in the very beginning when she thought it might be a hip problem. As yet I have been unable to get a GP appointment to beg for a stronger painkiller than co codamol .