Hello New and welcome to Healing Well. I have been MIA for abit due to my own health issues. I always hate to see a new person pop up with pain, but at least you have come to the right place. We all have one thing in common which is pain. Yes, we very much do understand where you are coming from in that dept. Please stick around and post and more and more will respond. It sometimes gets slow and I think alot of it is people feel to bad to sit at a computer for any length of time. But, hang in there with us.
Sure hope your new meds will kick in and give you some relief. I was on Cymbalta a few years back for neuropathy in my feet and hands. Once they got my dosage adjusted to the correct dose, it worked very well for the nerve pain. The key is getting the magic number that helps the most. When I first started on it, I believe I was started out at 30mgs, that was the starting dose. My PM dr said that was too low of a dose to work and increased it, it was given to me initially by my PCP.
You must live in one of the few states left that will pay a lump sum settlement on a worker's comp case. They changed our laws here in Tx in 1991, and took away an injured worker's right to a jury trial and a lump sum settlement. Really screwed the working people to the wall when they did that. It also took the attys out of practice that handled WC claims. I worked for a frm that handled comp almost 20 yrs, then the law changed. Big business got that law pushed threw with alot of money in the politicians pockets and then the swing votes needed they lined their pockets at the last minute and got it pushed thru. The ins companies all touted how much money it was going to save the employers and the insurance companies by doing this. It turned out to be a hoax because the premiums for comp ins continued to rise,lol. Why did your comp carrier refuse to pay for further testing and what testing was your dr recommending? Your counter offer to the ins company does not sound like much money especially if you are unable to go back to work. If you are unable to return to your usual occupational you have future loss of wage earning capacity. But, I also know each state has their own set of laws too.
One of the other here posted it seems to be very difficult when you have a back injury and you are trying to get SSD. I think that is so true. Since your lawyer on the WC claim aready has a copy of you medical records thats a plus and he can keep SSD updated with current medical records and thats very important. Many claims get denied because of them not having all of the persons medical records so they render a decision on what records they have and often they are incomplete. If this was your first denial from SSD, you go thru steps to get to an actual hearing before an ALJ. After the initial Denial you have to requset a Reconsideration of that Determination, then if you are turned down again, then you get to Request a Hearing. It generally takes quite a while to get a hearing because SS has such a backlog of cases. Don't give up, just hang in there with your atty and jump thru all their hoops.
You will find here that many of us do different things in an effort to reduce our pain levels. Also, there is so much medication available now a days for many different kinds of pain. It really impossible to know if the medication I take will help your pain because of how our bodies metabolize the medicine. What may work for me may not help you at all.
I have been using Zanaflex off and on for about 7 yrs and it works very well for me as a muscle relaxer. However, I am with a new PM dr as of the first of the year. I saw her last week for a pump refill and asked for a script for more Zanaflex. She said no she would not give me a new script for it because she stopped prescribing it one and a half years ago when the FDA came out with a new warning letter to physcians about possbile severe reactions when taken with certain other medications. I had told her my last script was dated November of last year and it was for 90 pills and I had 4 or 5 pills left on that script. She said well as long as you don't take them every day and use them sporadically I will go ahead and write you a script for 40 pills. I have a high intolerance of medications and she is aware of this and thats why she decided to write the script because they do work for me w/o any problems. I pretty much keep up with all the FDA alerts and have no idea how I missed this one. I went to their website and Marh of 07 the FDA sent letters out to physcians with the warning letter. I am sorry I cannot remember the medications they say to avoid when taking Zanaflex, they do have them listed on their web site you you may want to check that out to make sure you don't take any of those meds.
Hope you have had a decent low pain weekend..Susie