Ok, after 7 months of back pain and who knows how many needles in my spine, I've had it. I have tried and tried and I'm at the end of my emotional rope. I still ride some after a handful of tylenol and a few advil, but the rides are short. So now it looks like another course of injections. Today I am saying eff-it, I am medicating the body and soul with a few bottles of Fosters maybe some Cheetos, I don't care.

Good for you. I know how it goes, coming to the bring of starting Cortisone injections about 6 months ago. A double dose of Vicodin and Soma typically does me in. Any thoughts about surgery? (not a discectomy, but the other one)

nK

Girlygirl had a laminectomy (I think, or a discectomy--whatever it was, the disc was bulging badly and pressing on her spinal nerves so they took most of it out) after trying every other normal treatment because the idea of surgery was too scary. She spent about a year in serious pain, which mostly manifested as terrible pain in her leg. She couldn't sit comfortably, nor really lie in bed for very long. So we set her up so she could work standing up, and she had to get out of bed and stand for a few minutes every time she woke up in the night.

By the end, she was excited about the surgery.

It fixed her right up. The back and leg pain went away very quickly, though all the muscle imbalance and core weakness she had from favoring her leg and not being able to exercise took a long time to get over--more than a year. She finally got a personal trainer to help her through it and was right as rain four months later. Been just fine ever since.

The problem is facet arthritis. I guess the cortisone shots are to locate the source of the pain. From there they will kill the nerves with radio frequency ablation. I have gone through this once and thought they found the source. However they were one vertebrae too low on the left side. Last weeks injections were at L3 on the left and L4,5 and S1 on the right. I have already had L4,5 and S1 ablated on the left. This helped but when they injected L3 I finally got real some relief. Now I just have to wait to get in again for them to kill those nerves.

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