Im 18 years old and have been suffering with scoliosis since the age of thirteen, which at the time it was almost to where i needed a brace and the doctor told me to do physical therapy twice a month, which i did until age 16 when I realized its not helping at all. Since then the pain in my back has gotten worse and worse to where its almost unbearable and hard for me to work because with college and my job im required to be on my feet allot (which can be hard because its hard for me to sit or stand for to long without severe pain in my back) At first it was just pain in my lower back but now its starting to spread up to as far as my neck. Ive been prescribed Naproxin at first and now shes giving me Flexaril which i find useless because its a muscle relaxer and its not my muscles its my bone! the Flexaril does nothing for me at all but my doc is only a LPN and cannot prescribe any pain medications. I often feel im not taken seriously and i feel at 18 years old i should not have to deal with this pain day by day because i have for five years already. ALso ive been in two accidents since i found out i have scoliosis once at 14 where i was in the back of a truck and we had a serious crash (i didn't have any visible problems at the time of crash) and once about 6 months ago where i was driving with no seat-belt and lost control ( and also had no visible problems other than a broken nose) and i feel these things may hae worsened my back because the pain has just gotten worse. Ive done my research and i feel pain management might actually leave some hope for me. How do ask to be referred to pain management and actually be taken SERIOUSLY by my doctor (LPN) because i feel she is no help to me since ive been seeing her for 3 years now and nothing shes done has helped. Bad backs also run Strong in my family my mother had bulging disks in her back and severe scoliosis as well i don't know if a history of it will make a difference. can someone please help me and answer my questions, i feel like i should just give up and live with chronic pain as i have for so long now.. Someone please help
Answers (2)
Reading this makes me feel your pain as well. Pain killers may have relieved your chronic pain only for temporary. You have to keep in mind that they only get rid of the pain and not remove the root cause of it. Your doctor of 3 yrs should've found out the main cause of all this. According to drfryer.ca, doctors or chiropractors are supposed to go through the root cause of the pain before treating them. Anyway, if you think your doctor is not helping and treating the pain, you can see another doctor and have it treated.
your situation is so relatable! scoliosis also runs in my family. my scoliosis got bad enough that i had the corrective rods put in at 16 though(I'm 20 now). i was in so much pain before it so i completely understand. a non medicine way to help is swimming! because it lets you move without all the pressure on your back. even now i try and swim several times a week and i really feel my back get worse if i don't. its also nice cause you can go to the pool with your friends and have fun! you don't have to do laps or anything if you don't want to. even just being in the water helps. so my fam has also had problems getting pain meds. my mom came up with the best way to say it. if you tell your doctor that you are really really in pain but they aren't giving you something strong enough you can try saying something like "if you aren't going to give me medicine that will help me feel better i can always go to the local park and score some" hahaha my mother actually told this to the hospital for my dad! it worked though lol hope you get relief soon!!