Hi everyone.


Firstly, a little background info:

i am a 24 yr old female. I never had pain nor needed pain meds in my life till I was 19 and got pregnant. My pregnancy from 1-4 months was a breeze, but 5-9 was nothing short of horrible! After the 5 month marker my back began hurting so bad I could barely walk or move. I spent many many hours of the day on the heating pad. I even had to go as far as to attach it to one of those big orange extension cords so I could walk around my house with it. It always has to be on its highest setting because nothing else helps, I ended up having burns on my back from the amount of time I spent on it.


So, I asked my ob/gyn about it, he said that it would go away after I had the baby. So, I took that in stride and dealt with the pain figuring that after I had my daughter things would be fine. Wow, if only. :(

after I had her the pain didnt subside, it got worse, much worse. So much so that the heating pad no longer eases the pain, altho I still spend a great deal of time on it hoping it will. I went to my doctor about a month after having her(july of 2001) and he said that it was my body reverting back to the way it was before I had the baby and the pain would go away in a few months. He cracked my back which he said was very very tight, gave me a prescription for vicodin and sent me on my way.

Well after 8 months of controlling the pain with narcotics it still hadnt gone away. I went back to see my doctor and he said sometimes it takes some women longer than others. He gave me a stronger dose of vicodin and again sent me home to recover. This happended 4 times. I went from vicodin5 to es to hp and finally to percocet. After 2 years I was so angry and in so much pain the drugs were losing their effectiveness because I was taking them so often. He said ok. We'll give you and x-ray and see if anything is out of place.

I went and had the x-ray done and he said he didnt find anything wrong and it was exactly what he told me it was. So six months later after more suffering I was fed up. I switched doctors hoping to find one that could fix my injury. Boy what a mistake that was! Now, not only do I have a doctor who doesnt know what is wrong with me, but he refuses to give me any kind of pain meds to manage the pain. He says that I am too young! Well thats a fine thing to say. Im too young to take the drugs to manage the pain, but i'm apparently old enough to go through the pain! Gee thanks doctor!


The thing that angers me the most is that I think that my doctor suspects since i'm so young that I am making up this pain in order to get the drugs. That is completely wrong. Hell, I switched doctors hoping to find one who could fix my problem rather than hiding it with medication. But I dont see why I should have to suffer this extreme pain while there still is no answer?!!!?


I have no idea what to do now. Switch doctors again? Forget about ever finding help for my condition and try to live with it? As it stands now, I cant do a great many things I wish I could. Playing with my daughter is next to impossible, because if I move, or twist in the wrong way its bedridden time for me. If I lift anything over 10 or so pounds (such as my daughter) a few hours later I am in extreme pain. I am not imagining this pain. Its awful! It feels as tho someone is grabbing me in the middle of my lower back and just ripping me apart from the inside out. It gets so bad that I sweat profusely, yet I shiver uncontrollably which only heightens the pain because the writhes jolt my back. There has to be some explaination for this. Atleast I pray there is. I have so much of my life left to live, and this is no way to live.

I am tired of how I am being treated by doctors. I am tired of being told I am fine. I am not fine. This is not fine. I would really appreciate any comments or advice from anyone who has experienced this or even something simliar. I just have no idea where to go from here. Thank you all in advance.