Posted 2/27/2015 12:15 AM (GMT 0)
Hi All,
I couldn't wait for my scheduled appointment on the 13th, called and was given a next day appointment. The pain was getting so severe in my lower back, hip (particularly the right side), into my legs. I could not walk but a very short distance, couldn't stand long enough to get something to eat and sitting was next to impossible.
Took my MRI reports and disc with me for the doc to look at:
My L5 vertebrae had severe marrow edema (swelling and breakdown of the bone) affecting the entire anterior (front) side of the disc and all surrounding area's.
My right Sacroiliac joint was severely inflamed with marrow edema and severe degeneration noted.
So........... when I was there I told my doc that I was at the limits of the pain that I could tolerate, it was 24 hours a day with no break even though I was taking my meds. Then, the tears came. I couldn't help it, it was though I was possessed - I was trying to show him where the pain was and how it felt and I just lost it!!!! He knew something was terribly wrong.
Before I say what he did I have to share something, that was the 1st time since he took over my care as my pain doc that I really felt like he truly cared about me and my health and that I was not there in any way shape or form to just get pain meds or whatever. I really felt like he cared about me, a side to him I had not seen before.
So then he said that he believed a good deal of the severe pain was due to the inflammation in the SI joints, he continued to tell me how debilitating it can be when they become inflamed and corroded with degeneration.
I got 4 trigger pain injections into different points of the joints, changed my breakthrough med to Dilaudid, gave me a new med that had Naproxen/Nexium for inflammation. I am being scheduled for joint injections under Fluoroscopy the end of next week in his office.
I started to feel better last night and this morning to where I could get out of bed and walk and sit a little but I'm starting to feel the pressure and pain a little more now. Just one more condition to add to the list. I feel like if I can just beat this flare up I will be good to go again or what I mean is back to where I was a couple of months ago - yea!
When I took my scripts to my pharmacist for the Dilaudid, he was just a sweet heart-went ahead and filled my script for me so I could go right home and wished me luck in feeling better.
Even though there has been countless times where I felt like I was treated like s#%* by someone of the medical profession, yesterday was a great day for me being treated like I should - "a chronic pain patient in need of help"!
Pam