Unexplained Back Pain

I have suffered from back pain since I was a young girl. When I was younger, my mother pushed me down the basement stairs, so I think that it was began the problem. Later while in the 5th or 6th grade and in physical education class, I was doing what is called The Trust Exercise.

Now if I knew back then it was referred to as a Trust Exercise, I wouldn't have done it. In this exercise, you face your partner while standing, in our case, on a mat, it was either a wresting mat or a gymnastic mat. Then one of you stands still with their hands ready to grab their partners hands as they fall backward toward the floor.. the trust. Well my partner, Gloria, did not grab my hands. I crashed to the floor. This is when, I believe the majority of my back issues began.

I'd go to the doctors telling them, I saw most of the doctors at the clinic in my hometown. They couldn't find anything wrong. They all told me it was in my head. They took x-rays because I kept complaining about how painful it was. After the x-rays came back with nothing wrong, again they told me there was nothing wrong, I was just imaging it, I wanted attention. The doctors went so far as to give me muscle relaxers. But I was to only take them when the back did not hurt. I asked to make sure the directions were correct, take when the back didn't hurt. I was told yes. When I gave the prescription to my dad, who was a pharmacist, I told him to call the doctor to make sure the directions were correct. He did and he was told the same thing. So for two weeks I didn't take a pill because I was hurting all the time.

So I decided to take the pills even when the back hurt. They didn't work. I had two different medications and neither one of them worked. After the second round of no good muscle relaxing medication, I gave up. I didn't need to hear my back problems were all in my head.

So I continue to live with my bad back. The older I get, the worse the pain becomes. Then in 2014 I discover I have cancer of the appendix. I'm in the hospital for 1 week, I get out and my back problems are worse than they were before. I have to return to another hospital have the cancer removed. Again, I'm in for a week. When I get out, my back is causing me more pain than I have ever experienced. At both hospitals, whenever I complained about pain, they wrongly assumed I was talking about the incisions. NO, I was talking about my back. I was told there was nothing wrong with my back AGAIN. I told them my back hurt, it wasn't my incision.

I took my 5 years to convince my primary care physician that I have problems with my back. He's been trying to get me to lose weight since I am overweight. He wants me to walk or job. Well that wouldn't happen even if my back wasn't bad because I get shin splints if I walk too fast. I kept telling him my back hurt. After my cancer surgery, he was wrongly assuming my high pain was coming from the abscesses that kept cropping up, even after I told him it was my back.

But FINALLY, he listened. My husband was telling me we needed an x-ray. Since every x-ray I've always had didn't show anything, I wasn't for that. We had a discussion in front of the doctor about that, so he ordered physical therapy. He ordered 6 weeks. The therapist I had didn't realize that all the muscles in my back were tight, and not just a little tight but as tight as the wall. He kept wanting to strengthen my core. I kept telling him that until we get my muscles to relax, we can't get anything strengthened. Thankfully his assistant was more cooperative. She did something called Visceral Therapy. The only problem with that is you can't do that very often. I only did 4 weeks of this because it wasn't working I was in more pain after I saw the main therapist. When he asked me what was wrong, I told him we didn't know. He asked what did the x-rays say. I told him no x-rays were done and he should say in his report to the doctor that that should be the next step.

So I got x-rays taken the day of my final therapy session. I actually got in to see my doctor too. So I had a busy day. When the x-rays were returned, they showed nothing was wrong. No arthritis no problems, no bad disks nothing. My doctor suggested a pain clinic. I checked out the one he wanted, I figured since they'd do x-rays, and MRI, physical therapy then pills, we needed to have an MRI since I'd already done the other two items. So we scheduled an MRI.

Two days before my MRI, my doctor calls and said due to some problem, I called the insurance company and they said it wasn't with them, so I'm sure it was with the hospital, that I couldn't have the MRI until I had had a total of 6 weeks of physical therapy. So he ordered 4 more weeks of physical therapy, then we took a months vacation out of the country!

This time, I got another therapist who listened to me. I was thrilled. I thought he'd be there the entire time I was there. Nope, he was only covering for the same guy I'd had before. But because of his notes, the first guy knew what to do to keep my pain minimal.

I had 4 weeks of physical therapy. Nothing happened. Had the MRI. It showed Moderate to advanced L4-L5 facet degeneration, which generally means arthritis. But the x-rays showed none.

Now we didn't know what to do. During this all of this I had been trying Bowen Therapy, that sometimes helped for at most a day. I also tried sacral massage and then Neuromuscular Therapy. Both of those didn't do anything but waste money.

After the MRI came back, my doctor once again suggested the pain clinic. My husband had checked the clinic our doctor had suggested out. From all the reviews he read on-line, the staff wasn't the best at getting back with patients. And since I've done everything except talked to the doctors at the pain clinic, I figured I'd try another alternative method.

At the moment, May-?, I am trying acupuncture, acupressure. So far it's not helping. My back is still sore. I'm not sleeping well at night. It hurts to do anything. Nothing is fun any more. We had planned to visit our daughter this summer. It's not going to happen because I can't drive that far. People ask about flying. I can't sit for that long nor do I believe in the illegal pat downs you're forced to take when you fly. And since I'm wearing a pump, I'd have to be pat down since I can't go through the medal detector.

I'm thinking if by the end of July I'm still in pain, I'll have the acupuncturist talk with my endo about making an appointment with the pain clinic associated with the University that are both associated with.