I just got home from my ortho appointment a short time ago and wanted to post an update about my hip.
The ortho doc (actually PA, but that's quite all right) was very, very nice and very, very concerned when she walked into the room. The first words out of her mouth were "you look absolutely MISERABLE!" and of course, I told her I was miserable.
She took a look at the xrays that I had taken the other day that I had brougth with me and fortunately, there does not appear to be any fracture - although she did say that one area looked a little "suspicious" for one, but thought it might just be the angle they had taken the film at. I do have degenerative disc disease and a bulging disc that she said she's 99% sure has at least one nerve pinched/trapped. She said that would explain all my pain, why it's worse when sitting, why it goes down my leg and also the tingling/burning in my foot. Her exam, of course, was excruciating and she was very apoogetic for hurting me, but of course, it couldn't be helped.
She's given me a medro dose-pack (prednisone) to try and alleviate some of the inflammation and thereby hopefully relieving some of the pain. She also gave me a script for Nucynta, however, I was not able to get that filled because my insurance does not cover it, it was goign to cost $110 for a 10 day supply and even though she had given me a discount card for it, because my prescription coverage is through Medicare, I'm not eligible to use that card - nobody with any type of government prescription coverage is. Which totally and completely SU***!!!
So I put a call into her office to let her know about the Nucynta - they're closed for lunch right now, so I'll call back shortly if I don't hear from them soon. I don't know if there's something else she may want to try or if she'll just want me to stick with the dilaudid (the dilaudid does help). I have no problem staying with the dilaudid since it is helping, but I'm also all for trying something else if she thinks it might help better.
I'm to call her on Monday and let her know how I'm doing. She said if I'm not at least 50% better after taking the dose pack by then, then she'll order an MRI to get a better look at what's going on there and then we'll have an appointment to go over those results. If I AM at least 50% better, then she'll order some physical therapy for about six weeks - she said that sometimes once the initial inflammation and pain is settled down, the PT does help and may help this from happening again. Even if we do start the PT, if I don't notice an improvement after a couple of visits, or find that it's making things worse - she'll do the MRI at that point.
I asked her about SIJD and she didn't feel that that was my problem - she said with that, the majority of the pain is right in that SI joint area at the back of the hip and since mine compasses the entire hip, it didn't quite sound like that was the situation in my case. However, she did say that that would be one thing they would look at if/when we do the MRI.
I'm about to go lay down for a while - I'm totally miserable right now - doesn't help matters that I didn't feel I should take the dilaudid this morning with having to drive (it does make me sleepy and I had at least a 1/2 hour drive each way), so instead I took one of my regular pain meds - lorcet plus. I did tell her this and she said that was absolutely fine. But, of course, the lorcet does not do barely anyhthing for the pain and by now it has completely worn off. So the first thing I did when I got home was take a dilaudid and I'm hoping it will "kick in" soon and hopefully I haven't waited too long to take it and let the pain get too far ahead of me where it might take a couple of doses to get ahold of the pain. I also need to take the first dose of prednisone, but wanted to get something to eat first - I've learned from past experience NOT to take that on an empty stomach.
Sooooo - that's where we're at for right now - here's hoping she's on the right track.