So I went today to the pain doctor. It was a very nerve racking and emotional visit. I had to get records from when I was in the hospital, and I sat down and read through things. I'll tell you this I didn't realize how bad off I was till I read that. And to read it brought up everything I have yet to deal with. It just was a lot. But I found out some great information and I'm hoping for some positive results with the treatment. So first off he said that I will never be without pain. Even if they do surgery later on I'll always have pain. Not something I wanted to for sure hear, but something I had planned on. Just like when the PT said I'd always have to do stretching. So I figured if I can't go a day without stretching then I probably won't go a day without pain, unfortunately I was right. He also said that it seems as though I had a fracture on my left hip that I was never aware of. I always asked why does my left hip hurt with my back? And everyone always told me it's because I over compensate for my right side thus making my left side hurt. Turns out that's wrong, my left side was/is injured. No one has ever treated it. In fact I didn't even know about it, just complained about it. So he said because of that on my left side and the trauma with the point of impact being my right side it seems as though I've developed trauma induced arthritis in my hip joints, another reason why I hurt so bad ALL the time. Makes so much sense now that I know. He also said I stumped him, what else is new with me and doctors, and he can't seem to find where my pain is coming from. He said most of the time he can do an exam and know where the pain creator is, but with me he just isn't sure. He said it could be one of two things. One being that my muscles are just SO tender and tight and that's causing my pain. Because no one has ever dealt with the muscles just the pain. So we've never tried to work just on my muscles and healing them. OR it could be that there's something under my muscles, be it say a herniated disk or something, making my muscles so sore. He's thinking it's number two over one, just because my story of my pain goes with it better. And he thinks that maybe instead of having just a small herniated disk I have a bad one, but you can't see it on the MRI because of how inflamed my muscles are. SO here's what we're going to do to achieve our goal, which is just to get the pain to where I don't notice it as much, to where I can go and do things and not be out of commission for days because of what I've done....so first we're going to do pain injections. That is where they have me lie on a table in the office on my belly and then just feel around and when I say ouch that's sore they stick a 3.5 inch needle into the nerve and inject it with muscle relaxing medicine as well as steroids. They do my whole lower back, can do up to 15 injections per session, sounds great huh? I'm not looking forward to that! If that doesn't work in a few sessions, like he thinking it won't, then our next option is an epidural steroid injections and sacroiliac joint block. That's where they go in first through my back and do an epidural only they put in the steroid to help make it last longer, once that is in place they then go through my hips with a live x-ray and inject pain medicine mixed with steroids into my hip joints. What they are suppose to is 1, the epidural blocks the pain in my back muscles and nerves, 2, the joint block blocks the pain in my hip area going down my leg...thus fixing my pain. I'm hoping that something works. I'm not too sure I like the idea of the epidural and joint block....well I take that back it's not that I don't like the idea it's that I don't like the thought of the needles. The procedures themselves don't bother me as long as I don't think of the needles....ha ha. Anyways that's what the plan is. All I can say is I'm ready to have my life back. I'm ready to be ME again. I'm ready to just go and do and not worry if I have heat for my back, or pain pills. Anyways this is a long update and I'm tired so I'm going to head to bed.
Much Love!
