New here, frustrated and tired... Advice / Help wanted

Good afternoon. I am 53 and started having surgeries at 29 due to a work injury (Lifting paper in a printing press). I had a Lammy in 1991. The advice I got at that time after surgery was go home and rest for a month (no kidding). My employer fired my while in hospital after surgery. I was an exemplary employee prior to accident. My recovery took abouot 1.5 years. I also settleed with insurance company without a lawyer when I thought I was ready to go back to work. That was a dumb move. every 10 years I needed another surgery. I really needed it before 10, just sucked it up as I had to work and was trying to provide for a family so my wife could stay home or just work PRN. In 2001 I had L 4-5 fused and went back to work in 3 weeks (against advice, but based on last experience was scared for my job) and in 2011 I had L 3-4 fused (again went back to work in 3 weeks but was in management now so I had flexibility). This last one only lasted 2 years before pain started coming back. Went back to the surgeon who basically said everything looks good, gave me a muscle relaxer and "candy" pain pills and sent me on my way. I could tell he had no interest any longer. At my yearly physical I vented to my family doc. she suggested pain management and also provided me with some pain meds that helped. The only meds that I have found I can take are Percocet to take the edge off. I am scared to get addicted to these again as the withdrawal was horrible after my last surgery. The insurance company denied my surgery for 4 months and I could not work or move without severe pain and I ate alot of percocet. I had an injection in my SI joints last year and it only lasted about a month. Did therapy and all that, no help. Finally 2 months ago I had a spinal chord stimulator implanted. It helps the sciatic pain completely. The low back pain and the pain I am getting in my hips it helps some, but not like I was hoping. I have to turn it up so much, I can't focus and it is annoying.

Here is where I am now. My pain in lower back, across hips and in hips keeps getting worse. I have a $1200 chair that I bought and shoes with springs. I can only sit in this chair for an hour or so without my back and hips building pressure and starting to burn. I can't stand in one place for more than 15 minutes without my back "locking up", which means I have no range of motion bending forward without extreme pain in low back. Again, no one sees anything wrong, but I am missing work, leaving early etc. I am thinking about going out on disability, but trying to hold this off as I have a GREAT job that pays well and has great benefits. I just can't sit and work and it's taking a toll on me. That is my job, to sit at a computer, deal with spreadsheets, test a hospital electronic medical records system. I really only get about 2-3 hours of work done all day, as I am always getting up, moving around, taking a walk. I have to stay in motion or the pain gets worse. I actually broke down and cried to my wife not long ago. I have never done that about my pain.  I can't go to meetings as the regular company chairs are so bad, I can only last 15 minutes. At home, I cant sleep in any position as my hips start building pain. The most comfortable position is in the recliner with a pillow under my knees.

I know this is long winded, but it is my hope that someone who has experienced similar events can offer something I might be missing. I do not want another surgery. The amount of pain free time between them keeps getting less. Thank you for listening and any help you may offer.

Have you sought counselling? Someone to talk to about all of this? Over the course of my 'working life' I suffered a number of injuries that required surgeries, have lost jobs as a result, finally had to resign myself that I could no longer work and became extremely depressed to the point of a trip to the psychiatric emergency room.

I saw it all as failure. I needed help to change that perspective. I needed help dealing with my pride. I needed help dealing with my fears.

I had to fight 3 years to get SSD and have had to learn to live on a fixed income and deal with unkind comments from family on top of the difficulties and limitations of my various conditions. I was blessed with a counselor that also suffered from chronic pain, had left his former profession and became a counselor for others.

Please, be gentle with yourself, get the help you need for the physical as well as the mental/emotional aspects. We are all in the same boat, just different decks. Folks here 'get it'. We're here for each other.

Hello stevbren-
I also have severe SI joint pain, a few bulging discs and pinched nerves. I also cannot sit for more than 1/2 hour without getting up and walking around. I also sit in front of a computer 10 hours a day. I wouldn't be able to do it without the 30mg of Vicoprofen each day (which barely helps for a couple hours). I understand how hard it is to continue to be productive at work when you're in agony. It sucks! It's embarrassing and so frustrating! Nobody understands or cares to understand the excruciating pain we're living with each day. I'm glad you were finally able to tell your wife (someone who DOES care). I've tried to avoid surgeries only because it's my understanding that I'll need another and another... and the down time uhg :( so I haven't had any surgeries yet but I did have an appointment with the surgeon this week and he's confident that an SI Joint ablation along with some injection is going to heal the pain. Have you had the ablation? Unfortunately, in most cases this only helps temporarily. At least it's not a surgery.
Good luck to you... keep posting.

Hello & welcome to the forum. Everyone that comes to this forum has a story to tell.

Let me assure you first off that you are not a weak person. A weak person cannot not live the life of a chronic pain patient. It takes a very strong person to live this life & deal with all the changes it throws at us.

I have read from others with the stims that it can take awhile for the leads to scar over & the units become more effective. Hopefully this will be your situation.

None of us ever wanted to be on narcotics but in order to have some quality life that is how we manage. There are many other things we do to help get our minds off of the pain besides pain medication.

I know you said muscle relaxers stopped being effective, but there has to be something out there that will help you out. Most people with lumbar fusions require a pain medication, muscle relaxer, something for inflammation, & sometimes medication to treat nerve pain that narcotics will not help. Something else to consider is hydrotherapy. Getting into a heated pool can be very beneficial to many people for various medical problems. This may be something for you to consider & being in water will prevent you from injuring yourself.

The ablation the other poster mentioned in done by a trained anesthesiologist/pain mgt dr.. They do a diagnostic block first to see if you are a candidate for the procedure. It is not a permanent fix, sometimes they work & sometimes they don't. Like anything we do to try to get relief there is no guarantee it will work. You can use our search feature here at the forum & type in RFA & read up on the older posts about it. Many of us have done this procedure. We do ask that you not post on those older threads as you will get a better response by posting your questions here.

Keep us posted on how you are doing.

Obviously what you are doing now is not working. If you don't do something pretty soon you may find yourself in worse shape.

Sorry to hear your trouble. As if we don't have enough to worry about dealing with our pain, we have to worry about keeping our jobs too. I am going through that to an extent right now. Work is extremely busy and I am in physical therapy, which I am not overly optimistic will even help. So here I am trying to squeeze 45+ hours in at work while going to 3 hours of PT per week that is 15 minutes from work. Then doctor appointments and family obligations. It is a definite struggle!

I hope you find some answers and some relief!