Stabbing pain in buttock cheek and lower back?

[marne2]

Anyone know what this could be?

I have suffered on and off with lower back pain and pain in my left hip, have had a X-ray and nothing much showed up other than a slight thinning in my lumber spine, hip has got worse over the past few months. This morning I have pain in the other hip and stabbing pains in my bum cheek, finding it hard to sit down as it aches the every few minutes 'bang' like someone stabbing a knife in my bum cheek .

I have a doctors appointment later with a emergency doctor but probably won't get anywhere with this ( will just be given pain killers ), I have had loads of physio, every time I go and see the doctors they just give me amatripalyne (sp) and send me for more physio which doesn't seem to help. I have been pushing for a scan for 2 years now but they refuse.

Any ideas?

Sounds like a Prolapsed disk pressing on your sciatic nerve. A good physion should be able to diagnose.

I have chronic sciatica too. I find that a small pocket sized tens machine that is available on eBay relieves the pain a lot. It turns itself off after 30mins but it helps if you are not sleeping. Other than that I take codeine. Do you find it is worse when you are hormonal? I still get spd after 7years.

Always worse when I'm on my period or just before, I have just come to the end of a very heavy period ( which is a not her problem I have trying to get sorted for years now ).

I can't take codeine ,doctor gives me naproxen and amatripalyne which helps a little. Havn't slept for weeks due to the pain ,have spent a fortune on various mattresses and pillows over the past few years. I find lying on my back with my feet up in the air or my legs wide open is the only comfy position .

Do you have a tempur type mattress? I find mine is the only bed I can sleep on. Going on holiday is a bad time for me with med beds, hence the portable tens.

At the moment I have a sprung mattress with memory flan topper, was ok for a while but now I can't get comfy on it. I'm off on holiday next week so will probably make it worse ( which is why I'm desperate to get some good pain killers today ), I might have to invert in a tens .

Feel free to join us on the Back Pain support thread. There are lots of us there who understand the agony. If you've had the pain for two years and still being refused a scan, I'd be making an almighty fuss and demanding it. Lots of options on analgesia with combination meds tending to help the most.

Thank you Matilda, I have posted on the group before ( was a while ago ). Doctor was a waste of time today, he asked me what I wanted done and I said 'a scan' I was told this wasn't possible as they can not refer me, has to be a referral from the back specialist, I have already seen the specialist and they wouldn't refer me for a scan either. So in the end I came away with more amatripalyne (sp) and have been told to go back in 3 weeks if I'm still in pain ,he also gave me a print off on 'non specific back pain' ( have lost could of how many times I have been given this ).

Until you have had a scan your back pain is not non specific. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how both GP and specialist have refused this for so long. Amytriptiline is to suppress nerve pain, so clearly the dr is acknowledging that there is nerve entrapment occurring.

Perhaps a letter to your practice manager asking for a plan of treatment for this long standing problem and outlining the various aspects of your life affected ie days off work, long term medication. Emphasise that you have had no diagnosis despite your requests and are desperate for relief.

Then cc the letter to your MP. This should result in a fairly speedy response. An check whether it's true that the GP cannot request an MRI. My surgery certainly both can and have.

I must add that in order to get my initial diagnosis I did go privately. I was obviously very impatient as that was after three weeks of pain.. I was in total agony. You do sound very much as if you have a long standing disc problem. They do usually get better eventually. Unfortunately those that do not respond less well to surgery if it is eventually offered.

I am tempted to go private for a scan ( if I could find the money ), my dad has had back problems since he was my age and in the last 5 years he has gone private and had a lot of surgery ( he suffered for years being refused surgery on the NHS ). I will go back to the doctors in 3 weeks, today I was just happy to get some meds so I can cope with our holiday next week.

Your symptoms sound identical to mine, which a recent CT scan shows is down to one herniated disc, pressing on the nerve root at L4-L5, and another that they said is bulging, but nowhere near as much, at L2-L3. That one (at 2-3) is responsible for a burning sensation on the outside front of my thigh - a really unpleasant but totally different sensation to the stabbing sciatica in my bum, hip and back of my leg.

All left side for me, too...leaves me really twisted over to the left when it's in bad spasm.

What sort of physiotherapy have you had? Mine seems to be really helping, but it's not manipulation focused at all. He's directed me to techniques from Robin McKenzie's "Treat your own back" book, which really seem to work for me, as well as other excercises that are focused on gently and gradually strengthening my non-existant core muscles, to hopefully make future attacks less frequent, and, if they do happen, hopefully less severe. I think they might help you too and there's nothing amongst them that can do any harm - all has to be very gentle because of my disc damage - so feel free PM me if you want any more info.

Google "sciatic flossing" and try some of the exercises you find. If it's not your sciatic nerve, they won't do you any harm, but if it is they might make a hell of an improvement.

I feel your pain! I've had chronic back pain for decades and I find the medical profession worse than useless in treating it.

The only things I could suggest are to see if there are any back care Pilates classes in your area. I did a term of them recently and it really helped. Deep tissue Massage and shiatsu or acupuncture can help too. It's often a question of trial and error to see what works and unfortunately most of this isn't available on the NHS.

Hugs to you.

Yoga. Popped mine back and no problems since.

yogainternational.com/article/view/7-poses-to-soothe-sciatica

Thank you, physio was pretty useless, she just used the ultra sound thingy ( not sure what it's called ) and gave me a few exercises to do, she did recommend the book mentioned above.

Yesterday I didn't feel too bad but today I'm back to hurting on the left hand side and stabbing pain on the right , off on holiday on Monday so I hope it's not too bad for the 3 hour drive.

marne2 But was the physio useless only because what she did to you didn't fix you? As in, did you strictly adhere to any exercise schedule she gave you and read/follow the book she advised, and yet you still found no relief after doing the excercises long term, or did you, like most people (including myself, until the last time!) do them a few times and then forget about them? Fwiw, this is the best my back has felt in years and the longest I've gone between "putting my back out" since it started happening (after my first pregnancy, 14 years ago.) The only difference is that I'm making the time to treat it myself because the last time it went out was by far the most severe, so probably much more motivating, LOL! I very much doubt I've had my last ever issue with my back, but I'm 100% certain that it's really helping.