A&e, doctors or wait it out?

[autienotnoughty]

Off and on back pain for past 15 years. More on in past two years. Symptoms include lower back pain, painful spasms , shooting pains in thighs. Being managed with physio, Pilates, walking and yoga.

Last six weeks pain has got significantly worse. I keep experiencing weakness in my legs, periods of not being able to stand/needing support to walk and get up.

Today my back has locked three times leaving me unable to walk, getting worse each time. I am now laid flat on my back, I can't sit up. Dh had to drag/walk me to the toilet. I can't walk. I can't turn over. I'm applying heat and cold.
I'm also feverish . I have shooting pains/tingling in my legs plus the back pain and spasms.

Do I go a&e?
Ring doctor Monday?
Ride it out?

Doesn't help being married to a Duracell bunny who still expects all the Christmas decs done despite the fact that I can't climb steps any more.

I found gabapentin was the only thing that helped the nerve pain. Opioids were rubbish and amitriptyline just made me sleepy with a dry mouth, no pain relief.

Well the tree is sorta done. Haven't done the top because frankly I'd fall into it. Husband will have to do that and the tinsel. He appears to have buggered off again after saying he was doing some outside lights 🙄

I’m 12 years and 4 surgeries into the back pain journey. It’s shit. Im still angry and frustrated by it, but the way I get through has changed.

So, first off, I refuse to believe this is permanent. Maybe it is, but it helps my self- reasoning where I tell myself this is just ‘for now’.

I take Pregabalin, Oxycodone, Paracetamol & Naproxen every day. But that helps me kind of function, and go to work a couple of times a week (otherwise WAH), and go to swimming/pilates/see my friends.

i have a cleaner, and have accepted the house isn’t as tidy as it used to be. I live alone, so no one else to share the load.
Accepted I need a blue badge temporarily. It’s on a 2 year period (I just got it a few months ago). It’s not forever.

I have to keep to a routine of movement and rest. I don’t drive the length of the country as much any more…. I don’t go out all weekend any more…. I build in more rest time now…..

it is shit, but the alternative is to lie down and weep all the time - and that way disaster lies. I really hope that you can get through this, OP, and that it is a one-off flare up for you. Concentrate on building the strongest core you can. Take care.

@HollaHolla my husband is delighted I got the blue badge. He wasn't amused dropping me off and parking miles away if we were out together.
It really is a god send. Especially if I'm having a bad day.

I watch people much older than me walking fast, zipping around and feel sad. But they've their own problems I tell myself.

Everything takes longer. Showering, getting dressed. Cooking a meal because you cross a kitchen back and forth many times.

I use a laundry basket when tidying up if stuff is in the wrong room, gathering it up to move on. I have a fantastic round tray with deep sides which I use for transporting food, drink, dirty dishes from a to b and back again.

I have a lovely bag a friend made me into which goes my tablet, phone, kindle, ear buds at night to put by the bed.

You do learn little tricks.

Thank you everyone. I'm still on full dose tapentadol, asprin and paracetamol at moment got about two weeks tapentadol left. Got a doctors appointment Monday to discuss what next. The pain is manageable but that's on these pain killers. It's crap tho because even with them i can't sit walk or stand for long and I feel nauseous and out of it at points in the day. I switched from asprin to ibuprofen today to see if it worked better but I've had a horrific headache all day and felt sick every time I've got up so think ill stick to what I was on.

I'm praying it's a one off I don't know how you all do it. It feels relentless and it's only been 3.5 weeks. I mean I was in pain before but manageable pain thst maybe needed ocm. Not like this.

It's so scary I don't know if this is the rest of my life or a temporary thing. At the minute a five minute walk exhausts me . I can't imagine working, I have an autistic son who needs me. I don't want this to define me and to spoil everyone else's lives.

I watched my mother live with chronic pain, it defined her and she lived a very small life . She couldn't play with her grandchildren. She died in a lot of pain. I don't want that to be me.

@autienotnoughty what did the physio say?

I was struggling when I went (anxiety and pain) it was the furthest I'd been in a car since it happened and it was at the hospital I'd attended.

He gave me acouple of basic leg/back stretches to do which I'm doing twice a day. I asked him if he thought it would improve, he seemed confident although he said it's unlikely ill be pain free (but tbf I haven't been pain free for a couple of years) but he said within a couple of months I should be in a better place.

I hope he's right.

It doesn't help that the pain meds make me feel like crap - tired , nauseous, weepy. I need them for the pain but emotionally they are exhausting

Posted on wrong thread, have reported myself!

remember, you've injured yourself, and it'll take time to heal.. think of it like a sprain, which takes a good 8-12 weeks or longer to heal, its a process, and even if you are left with pain, you do learn to adapt and live with it.. sometimes that means finding a new normal, and sometimes it's mind over matter and knowing that today you do stuff, tomorrow you rest (or tomorrow and the day after)

i have an autistic 18yo, and i've been suffering badly with pain with my back most of his life, it does limit the stuff i can do, but i have always tried to make sure his life isn't less.. we just have to adapt and work around both of our needs, and he's actually recently, even though i'm HIS carer, started being much more thoughtful and considerate of my limitations.. he's started carrying the bags and things rather than assuming i'm the pack horse, lol.

i moaned at my gp again this week because my pain levels have been slowly increasing recently.. i do have a degenerative condition with my spine, but my joints, muscles and ligaments have started playing up and tag teaming each other recently, and i think i've cried more this last fortnight than i have in a long time. spent 3 days with the right side of my back in spasm, and today i feel like there is a knife between my shoulder blades.

They're sending me back to the gp physio, i hope because i've raised the question of hypermobility which would explain a lot of my issues, but if not i'm going to scream.. i've already had a course of physio with the hospital this year, and i'm back on the waitlist with the Musculoskeletal team, so i'm not sure what the gp thinks their physio is going to achieve that the hospital physios couldn't.

I like the tag teaming analogy. My husband just can't understand how I have hip, leg, foot pain, when it's my spine. He doesn't understand how sometimes it's the left side, sometimes right side, sometimes both. I wish he'd Google it because I'm tired of trying to explain.

I had an awful headache all day yesterday literally felt like throwing up if I lifted my head from the pillow. I assumed it was because I tried ibuprofen instead of aspirin (what I was sent home from hospital with) I still have the headache this morning. I really hope it's not a medication headache. If I can't get up and move around my improvement is going to slow done. I have a doctors appointment on Monday to discuss meds as I only have two weeks left of pain killers. But I can't come off meds while the pain is so bad but this headache is awful. Has anyone experienced this?

My dad had a bulging disc a few years ago and they did what you’ve had - opiates, Physio etc. did not help, partly because he does not tolerate opiates well so they struggled to control side effects.

He ended up having surgery and recovered within a couple months fully (he is very active and skied several weeks within 4 months of the surgery). We are not UK though and have excellent health insurance so options were more flexible, I would have a look at what the NICE guidelines recommend and see if you are getting that care or a more aggressive approach is warranted.

It's a mild bulge they won't operate at this stage

I wouldn't have thought ibuprofen would do that. Have you got naproxen?

I'm wondering if it's a medication reaction. I've been taking 2 tapentadol, 2 asprin and 8 paracetamol a day for 3.5 weeks

Naproxen is a nerve pain blocker, it's what I was given for prolapsed discs and sciatica. You have to take it consistently every day. I also had strong codeine for a while. Aspirin and paracetamol don't make much sense.

It's what the pain management team gave me in hospital and sent me home with a months supply

If it's not doing it's job I would speak to your GP to see if there's an alternative. Apologies if you've already done that.

Naproxen was what my physio first prescribed, she works with spinal surgeons and does rehab in the hospital. But I'm sure there are lots of options so if something isn't right you can try something else.

No it's not it's an NSAID like ibuprofen just a more potent one. A drug for nerve pain would be something like amitriptyline, gabapentin or pregabalin

Sweetheart, paracetamol is well known for causing medication overuse headache….please speak to your GP. Have you thought about trying something like a TENS machine, you could ask your physio to show you the points to use and where to buy one if they don’t have a loan scheme.

@Skibidee thank you doctor is seeing me in a hour. I'm going to ask I have taken a lot of paracetamol in the past 3 weeks. I'd heard mixed reviews about tens machines.