Hi,
My names Lee and I have degenerative disc disease, I had ACDF surgery about 3-years ago. Unfortunately it didn't heal my condition but did alleviate some of the pain. However I'm not pain free, I experience any certain degree of pain every day, whereas sometimes it spikes and I have what can only be described as chronic pain.
I have tried to do everything I can within my capabilities to manage my pain. I work full time, have a family and try and get on with things the best I can.
Predominantly my pain is in my neck, travels down both radial nerves in my arms, into my knuckles and then my fingertips. I am currently experiencing a bad flair up where it's doing its usual pain thing but its added pain to my lower back and rota joints of my arms.
Years ago I was on a shed loads of pain meds, which seemed to stop working so I came off them, managed withdrawal (not pleasant) and was prescribed the stronger cocodamol. This didn't manage my pain during flair ups, so I have to take tramadol and Ibuprofen. Sometimes it works and sometimes not so much. This is the longest flair up I've had post op and it's lasted 2-weeks.
I'm trying to continue working and not being off sick, I've been working from home but its looking increasingly likely I'll have to ring in sick. I've a GP appointment tomorrow but I'm not sure there's anything they can do. From what I've read my flair up will stop at some point and this is just a bad one.
Heat therapy, tens machine and tramadol seem the best fix even though thats mega effective at times.
As you cant see my pain it also feels like i need to.justify and explained myself as I'm concerned that people, particularly some people at work think it's made up.
I've never joined a forum for this sort of thing so I thought I'd just put my story out there to see what people might think.
