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Hello everybody! What a handy forum!

Generalsciatica

Hello everybody! What a handy forum! So much to choose from. My user name relates to chronic back pain, from a spinal stenosis injury. Wow did it hurt?! Still gives me grief after 5 years! Nice to see people helping each other out and sticking up for one another against these wretched political dinosaur parties. Hope we can all confine the policy of austerity to the dustbin! Keep it up. 10/10!

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Ami2301

Hi @Generalsciatica and welcome to the community! How are you today?

Adrian_Scope

A warm welcome to the community @Generalsciatica!

[Deleted User]

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thespiceman

Hello @Generalsciatica Pleased to meet you welcome.

Thank you for sharing and thank you for joining.

I am one of the team of community champions. We guide, advise and help new members who join the community.

Please have a look around our website and forum. We are friendly, care and share.

Please if we can help with anything. Please ask. Some one will know a member of our team or a member of our community.

Please I hope you enjoy your time with the community.

Please take care.

@thespiceman

Ails

Hi @Generalsciatica and welcome to the Community. It is nice to meet you and thank you for sharing with us. Glad to hear you are finding the forum to be helpful. It is a great place for support and friendship and I have benefited a lot from being on it myself and I am sure you will too. Lots of lovely, friendly people on here! I hope you enjoy your time with us anyway and look forward to seeing you on the Community. If there is anything we can help/support you with then please just let us know. All the best.

Generalsciatica

Hello Ami2301.
Thank you for your comment. You are the first reply to my new membership experience on the Scope online community. Since being disabled, I have learned a valuable lesson from others' accounts of their own disabilities, particularly how not to give up at the first hurdle, when challenges arise.
I like how you all stick together, offering each other advice and supporting one another with a genuine and meaningful dialogue. I do hope to be able to join in, as soon as I can get up to speed with this internet stuff!
Do I hear wedding bells in the air? I hope you have a happy wedding. With kind regards,
Generalsciatica.

Generalsciatica

Hello Justin,
Such a relief to talk to somebody that understands spinal stenosis. I don't much enjoy going on about myself but, I have had lumbar spinal stenosis since spring 2015. The left leg pains were totally disabling and so severe I wanted to not be here anymore! Now not as bad as it was, most of the pain seems to be in my back and is managed by tramadol and co-codamol. When the meds wear off it all comes back. I am going through the normal course of treatment and have nearly reached the end of what they can do. After around three and half years, the NHS decided I was worth treating, then there was a forty week waiting list! The trick is to go for a private consultation with a spinal consultant, which is a bit pricey and I had to save up for it. Your GP has to follow this up and when they see you are serious enough about paying for it, they tend to speed things up abit under the NHS. The consultant at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, referred me back to the NHS, and the long awaited treatment began. At present I am at the spinal injection stage!
Yes, of has got worse because it is not getting better, even after all this time. The injections are not working and the best thing is to live with it and manage it.as a normal fact of life.
Pity the DWP, can't see it the same way as numerous expert opinions in a file as thick as your arm!
When I got the backdated benefit after a successful tribunal, I put it by for a solicitor to deal with, for the next time!
True to form, the DWP ordered another WCA and now I have waited five months for the new tribunal hearing date, but still nothing.
You sound like you have also been subjected to the DWP and their well documented systematic abuse! Well I am on your side and I will be here on this forum if I can help at all.
Stick at it and stick together, and yes you can!

Generalsciatica

Sorry, Justdon!
My typing!!!

[Deleted User]

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Generalsciatica

Justdon. You have already helped with your reply insofar as describing your symptoms which I can understand. You are going through all the same things which identify with spinal stenosis. For a long time, nobody told what I had and it was a long time until I found out, after much research. Yours sounds like severe spinal stenosis and the condition is listed in the 'blue book' which the DWP uses to identify conditions which qualify for benefits. You need to build up a file of evidence. Written records by health professionals are very useful. The more evidence you have, the better.
I have at least 7 professional and expert medical opinions documenting my spinal injury. The only opinion that disagrees is the decision maker of the DWP, who has no medical qualification whatsoever!
If you saved just £1 a day, you would now have over a thousand pounds. Any welfare benefits solicitor would trounce the DWP at tribunal with your condition, once written in evidence and presented in the proper way.
I know every day is difficult with a spinal injury. The flare- ups, dropping things on the floor, running out of shopping, can't get to the toilet, can't put socks on etc. Always make a note of these things that you cannot do. These are the things which are always impossible in the work place. It is the things you cannot do at work within a reasonable time, which will be taken into account at tribunal. When you need help to dress, cook a meal, handrails for the stairs, assistance for washing and toileting and laundry, these are the criteria which will get your PIP award. When you get PIP, it helps a lot because it gives another income which helps if the DWP stop hour benefits.
The DWP routinely stop my benefit with every WCA, and have done as a matter of normal course. I have come to expect them to do it! That is why you have to be prepared for it. My case is not yet listed for hearing, but I saved up and paid my solicitor already!
If you are alone and shy, nobody will speak up for you. When you are supported with proper support, there is nothing is impossible. Stick at it, stick together, and yes you can,! With fond regards,
Generalsciatica.

Generalsciatica

The spicaman!
Thanks for that. I am enjoying the Scope online community already. My email skills are holding me back, along withwithmy awful typing. You have no idea how long it takes sometimes! I have recommended this website to my sister! The more the better, right?! Kind regards,
Generalsciatica.

thespiceman

Hello @Generalsciatica Thank you for reply. Sorry to hear what you are going through.

I have the following support group..

May be of interest, hope this helps you.

There is a lot on line on Spinal Stenosis.

Some thing to consider.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/StenosisSupportGroup

Please if you need to know anything or wish to have a chat happy to be supportive.

Please do not apologise for your typing. We as a community do understand. I myself have fingers missing. So typing can be a struggle a pain .

Please can I add your a valued member of our community. Some of the members use this forum to talk being useful. About anything . That concerns them and bothers them . I do this a lot.

I know it is some times difficult to express how you are and do not like talking about yourself.

I have myself learnt a problem shared is a problem halved.

Use this forum as friend does help me mentally.

Hope that gives you a lot of reassurance and confidence.

Please take care wish you all the best and keep in touch.

@thespiceman

[Deleted User]

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