To ask about gabapentin and nerve pain/sciatica success stories?

The discs don’t really slip, they bulge or herniate or are compressed

A bulge is usually when you start to get some symptoms as it’s irritating a nerve and your body over reacts to try to protect the area, your muscles all go into a high alert and the nerve can also behave disruptedly also causing muscles to do weird and painful things. A bulge probably wouldn’t get treated with surgery as as long as it doesn’t rupture it can heal itself over time. I had a bulge that healed although it was a good 3 months

If it has herniated then it either heals on its own a lot longer but can take a few months or you need intervention with it like an injection or surgery. Herniating can cause the fluid to leak out and it can cause extreme pain and be debilitating. The steroid injection accelerates the fluid being reabsorbed/dissipating and aids healing (we steroids do) it also has anaesthetic in it (wonderful) and they use a CT scanner to inject it directly in the affected area with a long needle

My 2nd time it had leaked out all onto my nerve area in L4/5 (I don’t have the MRI pic but it was so clearly just a white splurge with no definition) It had been bulging and giving me pain but the point where it leaked was so much more defined and obvious because it wasn’t just painful and stiff, my leg wouldn’t actually work properly. It twitched and jerked, was completely numb all my toes and calf and the burning sensation was unbearable. My whole leg would suddenly cramp up and I couldn’t move to get it out. I couldn’t lift it independently at all on examination. The pirifomis seemed to turn into a rock because it ended up over manipulated (by me and physio trying to get the spasm out) so it was just completely hard and made everything worse. It took months to get it all back to a better state but I can’t balance on that leg ever, it’s so weak and has permanent nerve damage with some numb patches and still is prone to cramps

I never had any back pain!

As for what triggered it... I have a dodgy back anyway (scoliosis, si dysfunction), am a bit overweight and don’t do enough core strengthening exercises - but the real trigger was stepping off a pavement and thinking that the road was a lot closer than it was. I really jarred down on my left leg and think I’ve caused the disc to either herniate further, or start a new one.

Just tagging on... been having the most awful sciatica / disc flare up since Sunday. Only on naproxen, décontractyl, and paracetamol atm. I have a rheumatology appointment in 10 days, but need to survive till then.

What are your flare-up first aid tips? I’ve been resting a lot (on back, knees up and on front over the end of the bed), ice every few hours, warm baths and the drugs.

Madness! Sometimes I think the NHS take the short view - surely it makes more sense to operate on people than spend 10's of years in doling out medication, physio, doctor's appointments.

Not really, because it isn't just about money. Many back issues will resolve given time. Any surgery involves risk, from both the surgery itself and from the anaesthetic, however small. Also the outcome isn't always what the patient is expecting/hoping for. I had surgery for a prolapsed disc which was causing severe cord compression (so no choice whether or not to go ahead). Almost 20 years later, although the risk of paralysis has long gone, I still have daily pain - which I was warned was likely - and the discs either side are degenerating due to the increased wear and tear.

There's a place for surgery, but it isn't always the answer.

That asterisk should say Pookie

I am week 4 of agonising sciatica and sounds very similar to yours Spam. Mainly the walking 10 metres then being in agonising pain - down back of my thigh. I’m wondering if this is sciatic nerve pain or perhaps muscles spasms like * describes? They come on like a contraction and increase in tempo so perhaps it is a spasm - would this happen if the sciatica was caused by a slipped disc?

I have been prescribed diazepam which I’ve not started yet; if this doesn’t work I’ll know they’re not muscle spasms I suppose. I’m also on cocodamol, pregabalin and naproxen. All seem to be doing nothing at the moment

I’ve got a two week old baby and have had to stop breastfeeding to be able to take some of these drugs, it’s heartbreaking as was going so well but I’m in so much agony.

I'm glad the TENS is helping OP, I'm loving mine too.

Where was agony?
Your muscles are contracting to try to ‘protect’ the damage hence the stiffness and muscle pain
My piriformis would Not Let Go
Have you tried acupuncture on the muscles?

I had a 4 pad TENS and it was bliss

Glad the TENS is helping! Which one do you have?

You can get different pads too, although mine is a big unit, but I'm sure you could use bigger pads, my machine has settings between 1 & 100. We got generic pads which work perfect.

To be fair you probably couldn't hear it over my breathing loud and shrieking in pain

@SpamChaudFroid no noise but if you look at the disc below where it says L5, you can see it crushing the vertical white line

This was about 3 days before the op

Apologies if already said but I found a tens machine good for sciatica. I just bought one from Boots. Have had various pain meds over the years when I get a flare up if sciatica. I don't like the side effects of many pain meds and they aren't that effective at pain control. I read somewhere that the sciatic nerve is sometimes called the river of pain.

@SpamChaudFroid nope, I got up and thought ooh sciatica, and this feels different

I've got private healthcare luckily. I've had a number of ops. The surgeon told me that I wouldn't have got better without surgery and they could see that off of the mri. I still have significant pain but won't have another op unless it gets much worse. In any event there is nothing to operate on me now as practically all the stuff has come out. I damaged my nerve waiting to see if it went away On it's own. I think they want you to suffer for 6 weeks to see if t gets better on its own but a good surgeon will be able to tell off the imaging. I'm 2 years post most recent surgery and still not great but I take no drugs at all now and mostly manage with pilates and mindfulness. My pain was horrific though I was on full dose of codine, tramadol, naproxen and gaberpentin and it didn't touch the sides of the pain. The only relief I had was making myself feel completely spaced out and I was still in pain then. I feel for you it ls the worst pain ever.

@YesQueen

Mine was all splurged out and the disc didn’t really have any definable edges
They just said try this first if it doesn’t work we will do surgery. And it did work a treat!

@PookieDo I refused the injections as they said the herniation was so large it was best to skip them! 15mm I think it was