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It seems like I always come back when something is going horribly wrong...
I always mean to come back to visit the forum when I am doing well to respond to everyone elses's threads. I just always end up doing a thousand things when I am feeling okay, and that keeps me off the internet.
As usual, when I am posting, things are not great. I got rid of the old surgeon and was given a referral to the Mayo Clinic. It took from the end of June until the middle of November to get a reply. I made it through "second evaluation", and no further. They said that my case was not yet severe enough to pursue there.
In the beginning of November I thought things were turning around. I was down to tramadol or at most a half a hydrocodone a day. We drove to Branson in my new (back friendly!) car, and I even went speleoboxing (albiet very carefully...and I only made it halfway through the box, still I considered it a triumph!). All the while I had popping and grinding, but I was dealing with it. I honestly thought I would be off all pain meds by December.
About 2 weeks later the popping and grinding reached a new high, and the pain levels started escalating. I had a pain management appointment where I was switched to Oxycodone, and given some information on the Minneappolis Spine Center, as well as information on the chiropractic part of it (Not sure why...I am definitely NOT pursing that). My pain management Dr told me that I would "need to be careful because they tend to be a bit surgery centric and do more surgery than many other places would deem necessary". That made me nervous, so I explored other options. After talking to several local people with spinal fusions, I found out that there is a surgeon nearby that did his residency at Johns Hopkins and is very good with "complicated" cases.
I went to my primary care Dr and got a referral. Meanwhile, that night (2 nights ago) I had as bad of a night as I had the night I came home from the hospital after the first posterior surgery. I called both my pain management Dr and my primary care physician the next morning (yesterday) and was told to either go to the ER and get an xray but that they won't want to touch me for anything else, tough it out until I find out if the new surgeon will take me on as a patient, or go back to the original surgeon who did the surgeries (lots of back story...my opinion of him is NOT good at all). I also found out it will be roughly 10 business days until I find out if I will even get an appointment with the new Dr.
I know that 10 days seems like not much compared to the time spent waiting for the Mayo Clinic, but I am not doing very well at all, have tried just about everything, and at this point the swelling has also gotten so out of control. I am not normally a sweller, but I have had to start wearing underwear two sizes to big and the other night I had a red mark from the band where I had swelled up too much for the BIG underpants!!
We purchased a hot tub recently and that had helped, but since the swelling started getting so bad I haven't used it, I have tried ice, but it seems to make the pain worse and the popping more frequent.
I am not even sure why I am posting. I am just so unbelievably frustrated right now, and thought maybe someone might have a suggestion that i haven't tried yet to get the swelling/pain to drop just a little. :/
As usual, when I am posting, things are not great. I got rid of the old surgeon and was given a referral to the Mayo Clinic. It took from the end of June until the middle of November to get a reply. I made it through "second evaluation", and no further. They said that my case was not yet severe enough to pursue there.
In the beginning of November I thought things were turning around. I was down to tramadol or at most a half a hydrocodone a day. We drove to Branson in my new (back friendly!) car, and I even went speleoboxing (albiet very carefully...and I only made it halfway through the box, still I considered it a triumph!). All the while I had popping and grinding, but I was dealing with it. I honestly thought I would be off all pain meds by December.
About 2 weeks later the popping and grinding reached a new high, and the pain levels started escalating. I had a pain management appointment where I was switched to Oxycodone, and given some information on the Minneappolis Spine Center, as well as information on the chiropractic part of it (Not sure why...I am definitely NOT pursing that). My pain management Dr told me that I would "need to be careful because they tend to be a bit surgery centric and do more surgery than many other places would deem necessary". That made me nervous, so I explored other options. After talking to several local people with spinal fusions, I found out that there is a surgeon nearby that did his residency at Johns Hopkins and is very good with "complicated" cases.
I went to my primary care Dr and got a referral. Meanwhile, that night (2 nights ago) I had as bad of a night as I had the night I came home from the hospital after the first posterior surgery. I called both my pain management Dr and my primary care physician the next morning (yesterday) and was told to either go to the ER and get an xray but that they won't want to touch me for anything else, tough it out until I find out if the new surgeon will take me on as a patient, or go back to the original surgeon who did the surgeries (lots of back story...my opinion of him is NOT good at all). I also found out it will be roughly 10 business days until I find out if I will even get an appointment with the new Dr.
I know that 10 days seems like not much compared to the time spent waiting for the Mayo Clinic, but I am not doing very well at all, have tried just about everything, and at this point the swelling has also gotten so out of control. I am not normally a sweller, but I have had to start wearing underwear two sizes to big and the other night I had a red mark from the band where I had swelled up too much for the BIG underpants!!
We purchased a hot tub recently and that had helped, but since the swelling started getting so bad I haven't used it, I have tried ice, but it seems to make the pain worse and the popping more frequent.
I am not even sure why I am posting. I am just so unbelievably frustrated right now, and thought maybe someone might have a suggestion that i haven't tried yet to get the swelling/pain to drop just a little. :/
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