horrific pain for 3 years Posted: 11-23-05 11:21am
Sorry about the long post, but my mom is
in daily, non-stop, horrific pain for 3
years and we've tried everything we can
think of. With every new doctor, her
hopes get up, only to be let down time
after time. Needless to say, she has been
very depressed, suicidal, which we have
addressed through counseling and
medication.
Bottom line is back and buttock pain, but
worst is shooting pain down her right leg.
It never subsides and only seems to be
getting worse. Over the years, she has
seen every type of specialist and has had
every type of test. She has tried
chiropractors, physical therapy,
acupuncture and even healing crystals out
of desperation (not something she would
normally try, just an act of desperation).
She was going to a pain management
specialist who gave her (in my opinion)
too many epidurals and facet joint
injections. I think she had 12 of these
procedures. None of them worked. After
one single procedure, she had a small
amount of relief for a few days then it
came back again full force.
We suspected rsd for a while because she
was experiencing burning pain in her legs
and I even drove her hours away to a
supposed leader in the field. He gave her
two injections to help diagnose her.
After the second one, her pain worsened to
the level it is at now. We wonder if a
nerve was hit that caused her current
condition.
A neurologist diagnosed her with sciatica
but we recently visited a very highly
recommended (by the chairman of the board
of our hospital who is a friend)
neurosurgeon who performed a new emg test
as well as a traditional x ray with her
leaning forward and backward. He said
that she has a back issue which was
explained that two of her disks are not
aligned properly and move back and forward
on a horizontal plane. But the emg test
didn't show this area to be pressing
against the sciatic nerve.
So, here we are 3 years later. Her last
hope was a back surgery to fix the discs
from rubbing against the sciatic nerve.
The neurosurgeon says this is not an
option as it appears that this is not the
cause. This is what is driving us crazy.
What else causes back pain with shooting
pain down one leg? We're out of options
and she is out of hope. Please, any help,
suggestions or similar stories would be
greatly appreciated. Thank you
|
Tamadrummer
Active User, Really EHEALTHy
Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 710 Location: Zephyrhills,Fl
Posted: 11-24-05 08:39am
Are you willing to travel to another part
of florida for treatment? I highly
recomend that you go to florida spine
institute for evaluation and treatment.
Dr. Scott webb is an unreal orthopedic
surgeon and if there is a problem in your
mom's spine, he is the man to fix it. If
for some reason they do not feel that she
is in need of super invasive surgery yet,
he will refer her to one of the
physiatrists in the practice for pain
management and some of the more common
spine surgeries like, micro-laminectomy or
nucleoplasty.
If you go to the pain managment side, Dr.
Robert gruber is the doctor that you will
want to help her in that area. Both of
these doctors have phenominal bedside
manner and always take on the burden of
the patients pain to do all they can to
help the injured get better and resume
their life from where they lost it to back
pain.
The address and phone number are:
2250 drew street
clearwater, fl 33765
(727) 797-7463
again I would recommend that you try to
have Dr. Webb as your mothers surgeon but
another fantastic alternative to Dr. Webb
is Dr. Anthony moreno. He is another
fantastic doc. He was the on-call doc
after I had my surgery and was in the
hospital for 4 days, he is really nice an
young with a great attitude as well!
I cannot say enough about the staff at fsi
and I hope for your mom's sake, she can
get to the place as well.
