Update

[Guest guest]

Hey all - thought it was time for an update on how I'm doing. I'm

just about 5 months postop (from the 2nd surgery) and actually as

far as my back goes, I'm doing extremely well. No pain problems to

speak of. However, when I stopped all the pain meds in June, my

right leg really kicked in with sciatic pain. It starts in the

buttock, and goes down the outside of my thigh on into the calf. It

gets much worse from sitting, so I find I have to lie down quite a

bit during the day - which makes it nearly impossible to function

normally! My PCP had me start taking OxyContin and Neurontin again,

and that controls the pain fairly well. When I saw Dr. Hu in July,

she said she wanted me to get a Nerve Root Injection (epidural) to

see if that would help. So I went to the Pain Center here locally

at Loma University to have that done, and guess what! Their

doctors wouldn't do injections in my spine because I am still on

several antibiotics for that Staph infection. Which makes perfect

sense to me - they won't open a port in my spine which could allow

the Staph in. They told me to come back in 3 months when I finish

the antibiotics with a release from my Infectious Disease doc. And

said in the meantime just to continue the OxyContin. And they also

are having me use a 10s Unit. I know some on here have

those.....can anyone tell me how they work? I'm also going to PT

three time weekly - I do aquatics for about an hour, then they hook

me up for electrical stimulation down the back of my right leg.

They hook up to the buttock for the piriformis muscle, and down the

thigh and calf. I told that it makes my butt cheek dance

for about 15 minutes.

So if anyone has any ideas how I can come off of all this pain

medicine, I would love to hear about it! I'm very depressed (once

again) because my back is just great and I should be done with it

all, but here I have to deal with leg pain. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

My Best,

~CA~