Please please can anyone help identify the cause of these pains?

[bananaapplepear]

I've been seeing a physio and an osteopath. Neither could help so I was referred to a consultant. I've had MRI scans.
Four people have looked at the scan results (two osteopaths, one osteo consultant and one neuro consultant) and the conclusion is divided.

I have a small tear in my hamstring and a disc bulge at L3/L4.

I'm having more scans and a steroid has been offered into the disc.

The pain, when it occurs first thing in the morning upon rising and after periods of sitting) is excruciating. Off the scale pain like I've never experienced before. I also get it when trying to sit on the toilet first thing.

It is all on one side; the lower part of the leg, on the outer side and moving down to the top of the foot and the top part of my leg, the hip area, down the outer thigh and into the groin area.

As I sit here and type this, the pain in the lower outer leg is like a burning sensation, the upper area it's more an awareness of pain and my lower back is uncomfortable.

1 osteo and 1 consultant say the pain is coming from the hamstring tear.
The other osteo and consultant say it's from the bulging disc.

Has anyone ever experienced this time of pain? Or is anyone a health care professional who has an opinion on where this is coming from?

It's been about 8/10 weeks now and getting worse, not better, even though I've stopped all exercise apart from walking, and even cut that down based on the hamstring tear findings.

TIA

How old are you?
What happened to start the pain?
Burning sounds more like nerve pain.

thanks for replying Dustylee123

I'm 58. I've always been quite active (gentle running, some racquet sports, yoga, golf, weights, lots of walking)

It came on over time; no one thing happened to start the pain.

Sounds like sciatica to me

What is the treatment (is there one?) for the hamstring tear, if that's the source of all the pain? Will rest fix it? I think unlikely if you have secondary injuries, too much wonkiness pulling you this way and that for things to heal on their own.

Quite possibly true it's the source because if you have an untreated injury, you're inclined to walk wonkey to compensate for that and try to avoid pain, all happened unconsciously. If you walk wonkey for any length of time you'll be using muscles etc in a way they wasn't designed to be used, so secondary injuries can result from this.

Sciatica is a pinched sciatic nerve that runs through the butt.

Burning sounds like nerve pain, could be coming from wherever.

What is the exact cause of the bulging disk? Sitting or walking wonkey long term since injury? Something else? What's the plan to fix it (is there one)? Is steroid expected to help as anti inflammatory for healing or is it just for masking pain for a few months and to be repeated until it stops working?

The NHS is good at dishing out painkillers, eventually, when they finish fobbing people off about needing them in the first place, but not so good at fixing root causes. IMO you were lucky to get this much investigation!

You need a plan of action for the hamstring tear and the secondary injuries treated too. It will probably involve private healthcare and/or a lot of butting heads with the NHS.

I have that and it was diagnosed as sciatica

The consultant gave me a more detailed explanation

I was told no surgery would help so I just have to live with it

Sciatica from the disc is have thought ?

I was booked in very swiftly for an MRI at the time

Thanks for all the replies.
Sciatica has been ruled out; the pain is in the lower leg and also on the outer thigh/hip area. Nothing in the bottom.
I've been told for years that I have degeneration around L4 / L5 due to age/accident in my 20s/running/who knows what.

I had another MRI scan tonight with contrast and hopefully the consultant will get the results of that tomorrow.

I do also have a tiny (4mm) tumour on L2; the contrast MRI scan this evening is to shed some more light on that too.

The osteopath has asked to wait for the results of this second scan and then he and the physio will work together for a treatment plan for the hamstring tear.
The consultant plans to do a steroid injection into the disc bulge but only after seeing the results of this second scan too.

Thankfully I have BUPA but I think my allowance might be running out fairly swiftly.

Oh you're with BUPA, I was wondering how the hell you managed that level of diagnostics and care on the NHS. I'm glad they have a plan for you. FYI sciatica can be felt down the leg, though I realized they've ruled it out for you. Nerve pain is a funny thing. The pains in your leg could be caused by your spine problem, the bulging disk pressing on something. Hopefully things will improve for you with treatment and you won't just be on painkillers for life, which is the road the NHS will likely go down.

The pain killers aren't helping at all Ashleyblue.

The pain, luckily, is only after lying down, sitting or certain movements and is not constant.
But when it comes, It's like nothing I've ever experienced and painkillers aren't touching it at all.

When I get out of bed first thing... 😩😥

Try and find a local physio that does dry needling. I had similar pains for a long time, used to stop me sleeping and wake me at night. Basically the muscles on one side of my body had all knitted up so much they needed to be dry needled out. Standard physio hadn't helped at all.
After 2 sessions the difference was amazing.

Thanks for the suggestion DNLove. What's the difference between dry needling and acupuncture? I've also been recommended something called IDD therapy for the disc issue.
Researching that now.

Look up and try structural integration or mctimoney chiropractic ( not normal chiro, no clicking involved) both of these cute sciatica fairly quickly. It’s a question of manipulating the fascia back into the right spot. Osteo/physio won’t help.

pls pls look these up. I had sciatica all the way from hip to foot. It was cured in five sessions. I’ve also had a spinal cord injury and I walk because of this help.

Thanks Okeydokedeva, I’ll look into that.

It does sound exactly like my sciatica which was linked to bulging discs. Burning pain down leg on waking as well as numbness and tingling. the doctor prescribed amitryptiline for the nerve pain which together with naproxen helped eliminate the pain. You say they’ve eliminated sciatica - I believe there are other syndrome such as piriformis syndrome that have similar effects. I spent a fortune on osteopathy but it didn’t help the sciatic at all. For me physiotherapy exercises and lots of walking (which the meds enabled me to do) helped resolve it. It did take time, a few months in my case, but once I was on top of the pain my quality of life improved vastly. Hope you get some relief soon.

I have had sciatica and it sounds like that to me. It was caused by an attempt to correct an issue with my spine, orthotics sure ain’t for everyone.

The way the pain twists round the leg and sometimes in to the buttock and sometimes not. Painkillers did not touch it. I had physio and walked a lot through the pain which sorted it, if you could do with losing weight now is a good time. I used to joke I was The Little Mermaid.

@bananaapplepear

I've also had this burning sensation on the front of my thigh. Never went below my knee though. In my case it was impingement of the femoral nerve due to a bulging disc. Kind of like sciatica, which I also had, but a different nerve.

It's been a while now but I think it was the lower of my two herniated discs that caused pain in the front of my thigh (L3/4) and the next one up (L4/5) was the one that caused the more common sciatic pain down the back of my leg and in my bum cheek!

Thank you all for your comments.
i had a nerve block injection and have been pain free for a while and starting to get back to normal levels of exercise etc.

Did your issues recur or were they all one offs? Did you have to have invasive treatments?

@Flockynocky can you help with me result

The MRI of her spine revealed mild degenerative changes in the lower cervical and lumbar regions, as well as bilateral L5 nerve root impingement at the L5-S1 level