To Trulyfedup

hi angela

i should think with bladder problems the gp would have phoned the consultant to ask for you to be seen . i would think you will get seen sooner, and i do empathise with you over the pain issue i myself have had real bad pain since 2005! yeh i know rediculous eh. but i have had an email this morning saying that my op will be around christmas time,(22 weeks after seeing the surgeon at 10 dec) although i have been seen by an ortho doc in feb and told i needed \"urgent\" surgery, but there you go to fed up to keep fighting , i hope your pain eases a little, keep in touch as its good to let it out i recon (thank god for this website). bye for now gail

Hi Angela,

Thank you for replying. I'm sorry the op hasn't worked and that you still have all this pain and the other problems.

On one hand I really want my op (a microdiscectomy at L5/S1 too), because I need to focus on something to give me hope. Something apart from the \"problem\". I want to focus on the solution. But I dread it not working and maybe even being in a worse state than I was in before. I think it's fair to say that so far the NHS has pretty much destroyed all my hope. They have been so awful and now I find it really hard to trust them to do anything right. That they have brought on themselves with the catalogue of errors, delays, broken promises and lies. Right now I am really struggling to trust them to do the op correctly.

This is like fighting them blindfold with my hands tied behind my back. I shouldn't have to fight them. They should be there holding out a hand to help me. All of us. Or is that just in the adverts??

I have read a lot of research statistics that state that microdiscectomy should be done within 6 months of the symptoms first appearing, that it is more successful on men than women and that prognosis is worse if you are over 42. So far I am ticking all the boxes. I guess that ultimately it has to be my choice to have surgery, but this is so hard. Do I go ahead despite the fact that King's College have messed up big time and destroyed all my faith and trust and knowing that statisically the odds of a full recovery are not great, or do I give it a go. I dread getting a full blown Cauda Equina Syndrome crisis. I worry about the severe pain in my foot when I go to the toilet. I worry about having another day like 13 May when I ended up being taken handcuffed by the police to a mental hospital because of the pain/panic/hyperventilating.

Angela, I hope you don't mind me asking, but are your symptoms worse now than before your op, and given your time over, would you do it again?? I don't think I can face all that you have had to put up with since your op. Apart from pumping you full of drugs what else are they suggesting? I don't know about you, but I could really do with some therapy/counselling to help me get to grips with all this.

This is really all getting to me today. Sorry.

Trulyfedup

[b:120785b282]Hi Trulyfed up[/b:120785b282]

You have to think is it worth having the Op and having a 70-80% chance that it will work out ok, or stay as you are now, could you cope with this pain you have now for the rest of your life. I don't think so I know I couldn't. I was told that there's about 5-10% chance that there will be some complications afterwards. These figures rise slightly if you're having a 2nd, 3rd Operation.

My symptoms are no way near as painful as they were before my 1st Op, I was in excrutiating pain I couldn't sit, stand, lie every position was sheer agony (even worse than childbirth and I've had 2 kids). But I still have alot of pain in my lower back and suffer with Sciatica everyday. My left leg and foot are totally numb and I've been told that I will not get the feeling back as there has been too much nerve damage. (Which makes you wonder why they then put you on a waiting list for 4-5 months it doesn't make sense). They haven't suggested I do anything except wait! But as the days go on my pain is increasing and I'm scared that I'll get the pain back that I had prior to my Op (God forbid).

I just have to wait and see if my Doctor has any joy in bringing my Operation closer after speaking to my Consultant. I can't see this thing ending anytime soon.

I had my Medical Tuesday gone and I'm waiting to see if I can still claim Incapacity Benefit, bloody cheek do they think I enjoy living off £72.55 a week. It really annoys me because I live in a small village and probably a quarter of the residents are on some kind of benefit, but there's nothing wrong with them (they know how to play the system) they spend every day in the pub, or there doing jobs on the quiet like painting people houses when they've supposidly got a bad back. This is why us genuine people cannot claim a thing because of all the Scroungers in this Country.

The trouble is that I can't sit down now without falling to sleep with all the strong painkillers and morphine patches. My life is so restricted I cannot do the most simplest of things, like washing the dishes, hoovering, loading the washing machine or ironing. I feel so useless it's a good job I have a good family who help me out alot.

I can't believe they took you too a Mental Hospital are these people for real. You should ask your Doctor to speak to someone about having Counselling/Therapy, my Doctors been great he phones me at home when he knows I'm down.

You just have to try to look on the positive side I know it's hard to do when you're feeling so fed up, just think there's only 20-30% chance of something bad happening. I would definately have the Op again given my time over again, anythings worth a try to get rid of the pain don't you think! My sister has also had the same Op 3 years ago (she was in a car accident) but it was her right side and she was off work 5 months but she was totally pain free after that, although her leg is still numb. She has the odd niggle now and then but apart from that she's fine.

Feel free to ask me any other questions, I'm so grateful to this site I don't know how I would have coped without it.

Keep your chin up!!

Angela

[quote:cc13b27bb6=\"gail\"]hi angela

i should think with bladder problems the gp would have phoned the consultant to ask for you to be seen . i would think you will get seen sooner, and i do empathise with you over the pain issue i myself have had real bad pain since 2005! yeh i know rediculous eh. but i have had an email this morning saying that my op will be around christmas time,(22 weeks after seeing the surgeon at 10 dec) although i have been seen by an ortho doc in feb and told i needed \"urgent\" surgery, but there you go to fed up to keep fighting , i hope your pain eases a little, keep in touch as its good to let it out i recon (thank god for this website). bye for now gail[/quote:cc13b27bb6]

Hi Gail,

Thanks for the reply, hopefully my Doctor writing to my Consultant will speed things up but I won't hold my breath.

Congratulations on been given a date for you Op will this be your 1st one?, I can't imagine having this pain for as long as you've had it. Have you been to work throughout all of this?. I haven't worked since end Dec 06. It's a crazy system they put you on a Urgent List and you have to wait months and months to be seen. Yet if we pain to go Private we would be having the Op in a few days.

Bye for now,

Angela

hi angela wow a minute on the date for the op! i,ve been told about 4 times that i,d be in soon so until im actually in the hospital i wont believe it but i have some very influencial people fighting my corner at the moment trying to get me in asap(cant say no more that that at the mo). yeh this will be the first and only i hope, i really hope it works first time and that will be the end to it. Yeh i did work for the first year after injuring myself but i was moved to the offices as it was less strenuous, but that didnt help a lot with all the bending over the desks and everything had to be hand written! so was difficult and most days i was high on painkillers. when i had my mri and i informed my manager well that was it , health and saftey issues, strong painkillers and the likly hood of more damage so been on the sick since feb, i am so bored thank god for the computer eh lol. chat soon take care gail

Hi Angela,

Thanks for being so honest. I know that there is a chance the op won't work for everybody. You must feel that you are back to square one. I agree with you about the numbness not being helped because the op was so long after the onset of symptoms. That sux.

Apart from the L5/S1 central and left side disc prolapse, I also have a bulge at L4/L5 so one way or another I think that for me these back problems are going to rumble on for years anyway.

You are very lucky to have a family that helps out and is so understanding. I hope that you get the second surgery soon. It sounds as though you have to go to the back of the queue again. That can't be right. You are clearly in a lot of pain still. If you brought a brand new car that broke down on day two you wouldn't expect to have to wait six months to exchange it. You have served your time. It's good your GP is prepared to help you. Maybe that comes from living in a small village. In London things are very different. I can honestly say I have had zero support from my GP.

I have written earlier about what happened on the day I was taken to the mental hospital in May. Basically it was severe pain/panic/hyperventilating and the Tramadol which had me out of my head. The worse day of my life. Things are pretty stable now because of the meds. In that respect I am lucky. Since January I had been on all sorts of stuff. I read somewhere that GPs are supposed to give regular health checks including blood tests to make sure the meds aren't harming the organs, liver, kidneys etc but I have been offered nothing. Does your GP check you out for the effects of the drugs???

I hope they move you up the queue soon.

Truly fed up

Hi Truly fed up,

My Doctor hasn't check my bloods etc for any affects of all the tablets I'm taking, I'll ask him about that when I go on Friday!

Last night I was reading all the Side Effects from the 5 different tablets I'm taking and also the effects of the Morphine patches I use, it scared the hell out of me they're loads of Side Effects to them all. I've had another bout of Tonsillitus (about the 10th this year) and was given Penicilin tablets, this has brought on terrible mouth ulcers, (I had to go and have a huge ulcer biopsied in Sept because of the same thing) I suppose because I'm so run down I keep picking up everything going.

Surely all these different drugs we're taking must have some strange effects on our daily living. But I can't imagine the pain we'd get if we stopped taking them.

I was going to fill in the forms I got to claim for DLA, it's like a story book, I put it back in the envelope for another day, they want to know everything, it makes my blood boil the questions are all that I answered last week at my Medical. Are they trying to catch us out?

I'm like you Truly Fed Up, I just want to be back to normal again and be able to go back to work I'm 40 but I feel about 60 some days.

Speak to you soon,

Angela