My 81 year old mum and her MH

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My mum has had trouble with her back for the last two months. We’ve been told it’s a disc out of place and she’s been prescribed Codeine for the pain. Before this she was a very active 81 year old so she’s not taken it well.

I visit her every other day and she gets very emotional each time. I do my best to comfort her but always come away feeling like I’ve not done enough. She lives alone and I’m the closest to her (half brother lives abroad). Im planning on getting her a doctors appointment and understand she can also get physio, so I will ask about that too.

Can I do anything else/what do I do as regards her mental health as she is extremely low in herself. She tells me she feels useless which she isn’t but I’m so worried about her.

Thanks for listening, anyone else gone or going through similar? I really want to help her.

I’m not writing this to worry you at all but when I had a protruding disc I needed to get literally 13 different doctors to see me before they stopped trying to convince me I had just trapped a nerve or had sciatica before the last doctor arranged for me to be seen in a hospital immediately.

I’m not saying it’ll come to that with her, obviously, but the longer my pain persisted without any relief (I was not medicated) and without being treated in any sort of way, the worse it progressed.

All of this is just to say please don’t be afraid to try for second, third, fourth doctor opinions. Codeine is not strong AT ALL (at least for me) in the best of times so I can sympathise the pain she must be going through just having to grit her teeth with codeine is fucking unbearable. If she’s in bad, bad pain and can’t get appointments 111 is also always an option.

Physio is also worth a shout. The same with googling to see if there are any mobility aid equipment she would be able to use to give her a sense of independence back, which would probably help her mentally as she wouldn’t feel as useless. Sending her healing energy x