Hi MCLN,
I'm so sorry to hear that you're suffering so much and that the dr.s' can't do anything for you.

I unfortunetly don't have an answer to your question and wish I could help you. the only thing I can think of would be the holisitc approach instead of western medicine. maybe you can try a chiropractor and see what they say about it? or maybe an acupuncturist? an acupunturist is seen for many many things and has been used for centuries.

It's a try anyway? right?

I wish you the best. If you find someone that's able to help you, please keep us informed of your update.

sincerely,
linda

Thank you for your kind reply Linda.

I actually have been to a chiropractor but after I told the assistant what was going on, I was told that that would be a very bad idea because it could actually cause more herniated discs. Apparently my back is just to weak for that.
But I have to admit that I haven't even thought about going to a acupuncurist. Do you have any idea how much that would cost? I have to admit that I can't afford a lot since my husband is the only one who works.

MCLN....I am presently trying acupuncture for degenerative disc disease. I have had only one visit and it costs $75/hr here in Indianapolis. It is still too early to tell if it works for me but I can relate to your pain.

Pain like this is the kind that can take over your life, as you have found out. I have also tried almost everything with little success. Pain meds probably helped me the most and allowed me to work but, unfortunately, I became dependent on the drugs and had to stop cold turkey.

I am also trying massage ($65/hr) and it does seem to relax my body although I can still feel the pain. My problems are mostly nerve related so I have been taking non-narcotic Lyrica, a nerve pain reliever.

I hope you find something to help you. Let us know how it goes.

lsg

MCLN,
I often wondered if chiropractic work would not benefit all people because of the extent of damage and the type of disease that one has and could it be made worst if manipulated by the techniques a chiropractor uses.
massage sounds wonderful as Lsg mentioned.
I've only had a professional massage once in my life and wish I could afford to go every week.

I would try acupuncture myself if I could afford the fees. most insurance companies do not cover the charges and has to be self paid. I understand the financial predicament you're in regarding only one salary coming in.
I've been there too at one time.

$75 dollars is alot of money to begin with. especially if the person has to go more than once a week.


Lsg,
I forgot to ask you about the lyrica you mentioned in our other post.
I am going to google it to find out more info on it and I appreicate you bringing it up.
I"m willing to try anything if it helps. espeically since it's not a narcotic.

you are so strong to detox cold turkey off the pills. how long were you on the meds before you decided to stop them cold turkey?
did you get very sick? and how long did it take to leave your body?

some people will fight you tooth and say that an addiction is different than a dependency if one is taking a narcotic for illness.
I don't see the difference. I guess they're saying that some people abuse the narcotics and only take it because it feels good rather than having to take it for a necessity?
either way, the body becomes addicted to the medicine and if stopped, can cause such horrible withdrawal symtoms that most can't tolerate it.

If you have any other suggestions for us, it's very appreciated.

I wish you the best outcome MCLN.

you too Lsg.

sincerely,
Linda

I'm afraid that acupuncture would be to expensive right now. My husband is going to get a promotion pretty soon but we're already looking for a house right now. The 1 bedroom we have right now is just to small when we have friends over and since I was born in the Netherlands, I also have Dutch friends and family flying over from time to time and that way they don't have to sleep on the couch anymore or get a hotel.

I have to admit that meds always mess me up for days.
Everytime meds give you the warning that they may make you dizzy, I can barely walk, even if I keep trying them for weeks. I must have tried out dozens of different ones but they barely work (if I even noticed a difference) and the dizziness isn't worth it. I can't even do the household like that or walk the dog. I'm on ibuprofen for my carpal tunnel and even with 3200 mg a day I don't notice a change in my backpain and they barely seem to work for my carpal tunnel either (I wonder if that's because I've tried so many of them already in the last 4 years) but I take them against the inflammation anyway. I guess that the only positive thing about always being in pain, is that other pains don't bother you that much anymore. I mostly went to the doctor because my fingers keep on numbing out.

I've been to a physicial therapist who used to massage me, but even that didn't really work. After all the free hours were done and I was supposed to start paying for it, he just sent me to the painclinic because more massaging wouldn't do me any good anyway. But with even the painclinic not being able to do anything, it sure hasn't done my depression any good. I'm just so glad that I have such a supporting and loving husband and caring friends. I barely ever let my depression show because I try to enjoy life as much as I can and only people who are really close to me know it, but in the quiet hours is always seems to hit me the hardest.

Right now I use alcohol to kinda numb the pain, but I only drink when I'm visiting friends or have friends over because I don't want to get addicted to it and even then I always go for the 50% shots since they have a effect for 1-1.5 hours so that way I can still limit it. But that does mean that my husband has to drive of course, so I only drink every other time. He works enougn as it is and he definitely needs his relaxation too.

I hope that I didn't sound as a whiner, but writing about it is always easier then talking about it.

MCLN/Lintek....I'll try to sum this up for both of you and it is more a warning against dependency on pain meds than anything else. We all have severe back pain, we all try to communicate the degree of our pain to doctors (some empathize, most can't) and we are all looking for relief so that we can resume our lives.

However, not all of the many procedures we try help us and some are positively medieval in their own pain. I am not in your shoes when it comes to insurance--mainly because I was forced to retire early with a great disability package and will hear soon about my social security disability application. My wife still works and I am able to use her nice med & dental insurance.

After all the procedures, tests, mris of the past seven yrs mostly didn't work for me, I fell into the trap of taking pain meds to allow me to function. I didn't realize four yrs ago that there were real problems with my choice because all I could think of was being pain free.

But the drugs began to change my personality and my moods, started to affect my body long-term and, worst of all, my body built up a tolerance for more and more pills. My pain became worse and I took more meds to stop it.

So, I got in the devil's cycle and it was a merry-go-round I couldn't get off.
I have already indicated that I am not a stranger to pain but the drugs turned me into a person I didn't recognize. A baby who didn't want to be weaned although I knew it was killing me.

What happened you ask? My wonderful wife Jamie and my understanding doctor joined forces to snap me out it. They both knew I was about to sink into the quicksand and they threw me a lifeline. My doc wanted to get me in a methadone program to help me but I decided to stop cold turkey by myself.

What a big mistake that was! Not only was I a baby again but I was an extremely weak and sick baby. It took a full month before I could get out of bed and stand up. Progress was slow and it was another month before I felt like the drugs had left my system. The first sign that I was coming back was that I got an erection for the first time in a long, long time. You know about men when they are on drugs or alcohol.

I can't tell you the difference between dependency and addiction because this is my only experience with either but I wouldn't want to repeat it. I am not strong, I give all the credit to my wife, who nursed me back to a real life.

I know neither of you is so naive as to think that solved my original pain problems because it didn't. I'm still in there fighting one day at a time.

I hope I haven't put you off pain meds because, used properly, they can help. I just hope now you understand the built-in traps.

Adios, lsg

The only ones I take are to decrease the inflammation for my carpal tunnel and I ibuprofen isn't addictive and the ones I tried for my back don't work anyway so I don't take any anymore.
And addiction is the reason why I limit my drinking so much.
Heck, I don't even drink coffee and only caffeine free tea and soda's since I don't like anything that could make me addicted.

MCLN....You are a very wise young woman. Why take something that doesn't work anyway. In my case, the pain meds really did help me control the pain but I never saw the consequences coming.

I saw a psychogist during my drug problem and found out I have an addictive personality probably because both of my parents were alcoholics.

I grew up not wanting to drink because of what I saw alcohol do to my parents. Unfortunately, I never realized I could become dependent on pills.

Lesson learned!

Please continue to monitor your drinking and I hope you find something to help with your pain .

Lsg,
I understand totally how people can become sneakly addicted to opiates.
they don't start out on the medications understanding how addictive they are and how every single cell in the body cry out for more if medicine is stopped. the mind wants to quit, but the body goes thru a super painful withdrawal. I think doctors are not warning enough people about this catastrophic happening.
so many people on boards and I say the majority of people at methadone clinics are people coming off of pain pills. good bye are the days of heroin addicted people going to meth clinincs. after all, heroin is an opiate just like the pills are.
so many people who haven't had addiction problems have this misconception about people who are on methadone. they have this image that they're this loser type person who does't want to work and sit on their bums all day collecting money from unemployment or what ever.
so many people are predjudice because they just don't understand.

this is a very serious thing that's going on around the world. the addiction to pain pills. I feel so bad for the millions of people who innocently became addicted to them because they need them for their pain, they are house wives, doctors, lawyers, police officers, grandmothers, grandfathers, I guess you get the drift.

it does make them feel horrible inside and guilty for something they have no control over. addiction is a monster and it is evil as far as I'm concerned it is like the plague.

I commend your efforts once again and I hear the sincerity in your voice about how much your wife helped you, thank God.
you're one of the lucky ones and I know you'll never get involved with addictions again if you can help it. the mind remembers it. some what anyway. like a person remembes how miserable it is to have a stomach virus that causes pain and vomitting and nauseua and you feel like you're going to dye at that moment but when it's all over, it's dificult to remember exactly the type of discomfort it was, or childbirth too.
you know it's painful but you can't describe the pain. you just know it hurts.
addiction to me is the same way. alot of people forget how painful they feel the day after and how much it screwed up their lives. they forget and go back to the intital thing that ruined their lives.
some times we dont' know if we have addictive behaviors unless you're confronted with it face to face one day. there's no sign telling us it's going to happen until one day you're faced with it.

I've warned my children about their genetics of addictive behavior. my brothers and my father were alcoholics. so it's on my side of the family and my ex husband who's an alcoholic, and probably his father was too and his mom drank but I don't know if she had an addiction to it.

please be very careful daisy. you never know what wil happen if you continue depending on alcohol to lessen your pain. you may one day be faced with a bad situation and not even know it snuck up on you.
it happens to the most innoncent of people.

we THINK we're so darn strong and find out later we are only human.

I can say these things because I am one of them. I"ve suffered and have battle scars to prove that I'm no different than any other addict.
I've suffered emotionally and physically for my addiction. I am now clean and don't want to ever go back to it again either.

I tell so many people to please be careful with opiates when they're starting out on them because the drs' don't seem to be doing it.

it's almost a blessing in disguise daisy that your body can't handle the effects of these dangerous medicines.

I think you should seek counseling from your doctor about your depression. your wise enough to see it, where most people who have a clinical depression sometimes don't even know it. I fought med's for years for my instablity of general anxiety disorder. I had it since teenhood and never knew there was a name for it. I've always lived with it there fore never knew I wasn't supposed to feel that way.
a hemotologist pinned it down. people with depression feel pain more than others. it's a fact, and people with g.a.d. (general anxiety disorder)
we're more sensitive to stimuli and therefore feel things more painful.
which brings depression and depression can make you feel you have no joy in life. until one day, you finally take the medicine that the drs have been trying to get you to take and you finally have a veil taken off your eyes and you once again begin to feel joy by seeing the simple things in life like a flower that's in bloom or to enjoy the smell of just freshly cut grass that someone near by just mowed.
before that, life seemed dead and lifeless. I was lifeless.
so here I am pouring out my soul to you like you said makes us feel good.
it's good and healhty to share things with others. not only does it help us, but it helps others too.
keeping a daily journal helps with the depression too daisy.
belonging to a board of people who suffer the same things helps too.
you get the support you need and you know you're not the only one going thru it and you're suprised that others feel the same way too.

we're all a special bunch of people in our ways and every word or feeling counts and shouldnt be ignored. I really do care about how people feel. because I am one of the people in this world who wish more people cared.
I treat others how I'd like to be treated. so I'm here for you if you need to talk. I don't know if they have private message here and I don't think you're allowed to post your personal email address, so be careful and ck the rules first. otherwise you might get banned.

have a great day

linda

Thanks for the kind replies.
And I'm sorry for my late one but one the electricpoles got short circuited or something and burned down, taking the telephone pole with it and the last one didn't get fixed until yesterday afternoon.

When I read those stories, I'm so glad that I don't have any addicted people in my family but I'm still very careful.
I can imagine how hard it is to get rid of it.

I actually have been to a doctor once for my depression but all he recommended me to do was take anti-depressants and the side-effects weren't worth it since I became highly suicidal and gained 10 pounds within a couple of months so I quit. The thing is that I know exactly why I'm depressed and I do talk about it from time to time, mostly with my husband and best friend but it doesn't seem to make it easier. I even talked about it with a friend who's a psychologist and I didn't have the feeling that it helped very much either. But he told me that as long as I can't fully accept the fact that I'm limited in what I can do and will be in pain for as long as they haven't developed a successful method to get rid of the scartissue, I'll stay depressed, which makes sense of course.
It's already been 4 years now but it's also just 4 years of the 26 I've lived and I still know to well what I'm missing.
Time should help but it sure doesn't make it easier right now.

Does anybody know what might be a good meditation method by the way, I've tried some basic breathing exercises while laying on my bed but I always end up falling asleep.

Thanks again and take care everyone.