h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just got back from my first appointment at the pain clinic. Got a collapsed disc in my lower back and some gunge from inside the disc is pressing on nerves. It started 3 years and 3 months ago and it's taken all this time to get an appointment to do something about it. They've lent me a TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator) machine. It's a little black box with a battery in it connected to a couple of pads stuck an inch apart near the site of the burst disc. It has 4 little buttons on it; on/off, increase tingle, decrease tingle, change tingle. Hope it improves things.

The waiting room of the pain clinic (in Northampton General Hospital) is full of things for sale like second hand books and tea cosies. There are competitions to name the teddy bear and all sorts of other things to pay for the clinic. So this is what the National Health Service has come to.

The pain has been really intense and it amazed me that I could go from working between 40 and 60 hours a week to being incapable of working at all (for about 6 months) and the National Health Service made no real effort to help. This is the same NHS I and all the other tax payers imagined would help us if anything like this happened. You'd think they'd want to help to get workers back to work at the very least to pay for the flippin' service. Well, whatever my taxes go to pay for, it doesn't seem as though it's that pain clinic.

Hi Sal
Is it working yet?
The NHS is awful isn't it!

After 6 years and goodness knows how many blood tests and x-rays of the parts that DIDN'T hurt and a consultant who was about 30 years older than me who made me slide my hands down my legs (and, when I managed to reach my knees, said "I don't know what you're worried about - you can get further than I can") 6 months ago I finally managed to get an appointment with the sensible GP in the group practice, who immediately sent me for an MR scan - at the private hospital.
It was a revelation.
Quite apart from the equipment (and not having to wait on uncomfortable chairs all day) there was the fact that the doctor correctly diagnosed my slipped discs even before seeing the result of the scan.
He took my pulse with my arm in various states of elevation. Apparently the loss of pulse is a classic sign.
He didn't use any expensive equipment or esoteric techniques so why was no NHS consultant capable of doing that?
I don't know about you but in my experience the NHS consultants just seem to spend 5 minutes with you so they can tick you off the list, rather than actually examining you, or listening to what you have to say.
I even had one who said the symptoms in my arms could be CPS and, instead of accepting that we'd ruled that out years before, sent me to another hospital for a test and then wrote to me saying "I'm happy to tell you the results show you don't have CPR" and signed me off!!!


I hope the TENS works Sal.
I'm finding the swimming seems to help. I'm hoping it will also help to reduce some of the weight I put on when I couldn't walk and thence take a little pressure off the spine. . .
(Hoping for the opposite of a vicious circle)
I just feel wonderful knowing what's wrong. It makes it so much easier to cope with

Hey, Sal! Sorry to hear the pain's got that bad. I guess that's why I haven't seen you over at the Overflow for a while; it can't be easy sitting in front of a PC in your condition. I just popped over to tell you that they'd finally fixed the bug which was causing all the button graphics to be missing!

Hope you feel a *lot* better soon,
Peet

Eek!
I've just found a terrifying typo in my last post. Apparently I don't have CPR

I hope the TENS is working.
I have a friend in Spain with the same problem. His doctor sends him for gentle traction, which helps him a great deal. I've been told (in a very sniffy manner) "We don't do that in this country". Wonder why.

You may think it a little drastic, but I've found sunbeds seem to help as well. You enclose yourself in something like a coffin, which then throws an incredible amount of heat at you for half an hour, and it soaks right into your bones so when you get out you feel absolutely wonderful (and you get a tan into the bargain).

Thanks maties! Sorry I haven't responded. Haven't been in for a couple of days. The doc at the pain clinic dug his knuckles into my most hurty bit and seems to have aggravated the prob so I've been avoiding the vertical and applying the ice. I'll do you an proper reply when my healing processes have restored me to my usual state of mild desperation

Sal :

Hey Sal,
that was kind of the doc. Just came by to see how you were doing. Has the pain clinic helped at all?

Have to say my experience of NHS consultants is the same as Tefkats. 5 minutes and no help. Also swimming helped, it solved my problem. A solution I owe to BBC Radio 4, not the NHS.

I hope things improve quickly, I didn't realise this had stopped you working.
Waz

Yes, I've found swimming helps too.
My friend in Spain said it had helped him enormously . . .but I was terrified of water.
So I bought some goggles, a nose clip and some ear plugs and took the plunge .
I look extremely but it's worth it.
Last week I even learned to breathe and almost swam 25 metres (24 and drowned).
s were never meant to swim

It's wonderful. When I get out I can walk without pain. I almost feel I could run (Now let's not get carried away here)

Poor Sal.
The TENS obviously didn't work. I hope they find a better solution for you.
(Actually, I was just telling Hubby just now, after I'd said "Up a bit, left a bit...", what you really need is a man with big warm hands )

turning into a ?

Still no Sal . I don't know anything about Pain Clinics but they sound more like a place to help you cope with a problem rather than cure it. Not something the NHS has a reputation for.

Sorry you've had probs too, you poor dabs. Keeps you in touch with the reality of *real life* in a horrible sort of way, doesn't it? I don't imagine it can be very much better than living in the dark ages: constant pain and no help for it. That TENS machine does actually work a little bit but not enough to get me functioning. I'm still here but in a limited way. Still in a pickle. Hope you won't think me too pathetic. I can't use swimming to ease it. I can swim like a fish and could swim (according to my mum) before I could walk. Trouble is, I have an ear prob that's dragged me through more than a dozen ops so far. I'm under strict instructions never to get water in my ears. As all who go into water know, there's no way to keep it out of ears - ear plugs and swimming caps don't work. Also, heat doesn't work. I keep applying ice packs to the hurty bit and I "sleep" with a chilled hot water bottle against it. The quotes are because "sleep" doesn't come easily - or sometimes, at all. So there you have it. Life isn't a walk in the park just now. I hope to be back to normal before too very much longer though. Sorry to be such an old misery.

Sal

Oh Sal
One of the ladies in my swimming class has a band that goes round her head at ear level, over the earplugs, which she says works. It's actually meant for children with ear problems but it fits adults.
She bought it from a catalogue.
I'll ask her on Friday

Good to hear from you Sal. "Sleeping" or even sleeping with a chilly hot water bottle doesn't sound very pleasant. Does the clinic have any more advice or do you just have to wait this out?

BTW, not to mislead, my problem, with a hip joint, was some years ago. As long as I keep up the swimming I don't have a problem. But I found out what its like not be able to get around or sleep and how good it is being able to do all that I do now.

Hope the Renaissance isn't far off, (is that what came after the dark ages?)
Waz

Sal, last time I was really bad the quack gave me some tri-cyclic anti-depressants (I think). I know it sounds weird but apparently they change the way your brain perceives pain. He said if he sent me to a pain clinic it would be one of the first things they tried.
One of the side-effects put me to sleep for a large part of every day. (I was taking the kids to school, coming home and going back to bed till it was time to collect them again)
Apparently the sedative effect wears off after the first 5 or 6 days but after 4 days I felt fine so I stopped taking them.
I can't decide whether it was the pills or all the sleep that effected the cure, but since your pain is interfering with your sleep they might be worth a try.
They were called amitriptyline.
Hope you find something effective soon