Hey everyone!
My name is Jenna, I'm 24 years old and I live in North Wales.
I want to share a story with you...feel free to click off this whenever you want haha!
Sooo around five years ago, I began experiencing sciatic pain down one leg...it took a long time for me to be referred to my local hospital but I pushed and pushed!
After around two years of pestering my GP and receiving different treatments for my sciatica, I finally got the MRI scan that I needed...I had a disc prolapse and it required surgery at a specialist hospital! I was put on the surgery waiting list straight away as I had already received different nonsurgical treatment which all failed to work.
When I was initially put on the surgery waiting list, I had a new MRI scan to ensure my results were up to date...they then had those results for 12 months, despite me calling every few weeks to find out a rough date for my bilateral decompression discectomy.
As time went on the sciatica got worse and began causing problems in both legs; when I finally saw a specialist after 12 months, he told me I no longer needed surgery as the disc had shrunk and returned back to it's original place...however I was still experiencing more and more pain and all he could come up with was that it was permanent nerve damage caused by the disc prolapse that had been pressing on my sciatic nerves for many years.
He wanted to confirm that surgery was no longer necessary by repeating a scan, which is when he told me that I have degenerative disc disease which is very visible in three places in my lumbar spine but also there is one starting higher up in the spine.
I have become very lonely over the last five years as people don't really bother anymore to check on me, obviously apart from my mum, my sister and my boyfriend who are all very very supportive of me.
I would love to meet different people with different backgrounds, just to share experiences and maybe even exchange knowledge on the condition or on other conditions.
I am worried that 'DDD' may affect me more and more as time goes on. The one thing I would love in life is to have children someday and I can barely lift a kettle of water, let alone a child at the moment, so things like that do get me feeling down...so I just want to talk to people who may be in similar situations.
I was forced to leave my 2 jobs - in retail and in childcare, so at the moment I'm trying to search for a job that is obviously less strenuous. I do have a meeting coming up, with a lady from Scope who will aim to advise me in the best way.
I hope I hear from different people soon and I applaud you if you get through this long story!!
