Hello all. I have Chiari 1 and Syringomyelia. After 4 surgeries including a shunt in my thoracic spinal cord, things were looking up and my syrinx was shrinking. I had a good year from about July 2014 - August 2015. I had returned to work and was feeling pretty good. In early August I started getting back pain again :( Had an MRI and my syrinx is growing again. My NS is afraid to do any more surgery at this point unless I start to have a serious decline in quality of life, so they have referred me to pain management. I've been waiting since August for this appointment and I finally get to see pain management this week. I'm just wondering if anyone has had any success with pain management. I'm trying to avoid more surgery for obvious reasons, but I've had to quit my job (again...) and I'm tired of being in constant, ever-changing (stabbing, tingling, itching, burning and general aching) pain. I can't enjoy taking a walk without back pain flaring up, I can't sit in the same position or in certain chairs for long, some nights I'm so uncomfortable I barely get an hour or two of sleep, and I can't even cook dinner or wash dishes comfortably half of the time. I've tried things like Icy Hot, lidocaine creams, OTC meds such as Tylenol, Ibuprofen and Excedrin, heat packs and a massage pad but nothing really helps. I feel like the stress from being in pain just makes the pain worse some days! Sorry for the long rant, but I know if anyone would understand it would be the lovely people in this group. I see pain management on the 23rd, so if anyone has any advice or experience to share I would greatly appreciate it :)