Residual Leg Pain

[mrsyanni]

I have been reading a lot of these discussions regarding residual nerve pain and how patients can move forward without medicine and keep reading the same line. I keep reading to either press on through the pain or keep taking medications ( I elieve it was just Charleens posting I just read..) No one wants to be on Percocet all the time and I can't believe in 2011 that is all that can be offered. The only reason for me looking at this site is that my husband is having severe nerve pain from his double spinal fusion and doesn't want to keep taking pain. All percocet is doing in masking the pain and putting the patient on auto pilot. How comes there are never mentions of alternative therapy, .i.e accupunture, trigger point therapy,... something. ..just pressing on through the pain, I can't believe this is the only answer. Keeping patients pumped full of medications is doing a limited amount for their quality of life and puts loads of money into the pharmeceutical companies pocket. There have been lots of people on site wishing do more on there own so they can move forward and enjoy life. Please, lets provide some good, self-educating, and self-reliant information. I am going to get off my soap box, lol... just a worried wife looking for information on the internet and tired of seeing the same standard delivery. I feel for all of you suffering. Watching my husband deal with this for over a year has been painful to watch. I started learning trigger point therapy on my own and it has help, but because no one wanted to operate on him, he now is suffering from residual pain (after finally getting the surgery). I hope you all find something on the alternative side that helps lighten your medicine load. God Speed.


This discussion is related to still having pain after fusion.

[SLadylani]

Thanks for your well wishes and I send you and your husband the same :)

Sara

[mrsyanni]

Greetings, I am so sorry to hear that. I am currently in a holistic college program right now, and yes you are right it is expensive! Things that are helping my husband.. hot tub (or a hot bath) and the trigger point therapy. It is just so frustrating that modern medincine is still behind the power curve with alternative treatments. When I was working in Afghanistan, the Korean soldiers were issued 20 minute accupuncture treatments (after working all day) and what do we get?? NSAIDs.

But you are right though, you do kinda need someone to help you.. sitting in hot water has helped my husband and then we sometimes do 20 minutes hot pad/20 minutes cold.  I hope for the future that we see more alternative and holistic therapy to help people more fullfilling and coherent lives! Oh.. another thing that has helped my husband when his back pain gives him a bad headache is that I pour a small amount of peppermint oil in a bowl of boiling water. The vapors help calm his headache pain. He just went and got a 90 minute trigger point therapy massage, which he felt great afterwards.. but like you mention that boils down to money. I really hope the preventative care aspect starts turning. I hope you find something that works for you! Don't give up researching and looking for information! I am constantly emailing my husbands neurosurgen asking about treatments out there.

Wishing you a quick and healthy recovery.

[SLadylani]

I know I'm on pain killers because I have crappy low-income insurance that won't cover any other forms of alternative therapy, which are pretty expensive. I also live by myself and have chronic back/neck pain, so trigger points i couldn't do by myself. Medication is the cheap route, and I have no money. I have tried all forms of alternative therapy I can do on my own, but none worked. So I'm stuck with the pain killers until the doctors can do somethins about my pain, which means my insurance has to decide whether they will cover an MRI or not, and whether I can see a specialist.