Hello everyone! I want to start by saying I am so very sorry for your pain. I was searching for answers - anything - that might help my husband and found your site. He too suffers from severe, dibilitating pain and your posts seemed somehow comforting. Please don't take that wrong - I just mean that we aren't alone. None of our friends understand that we can't go out for an evening like we used to and most of them have just stopped calling or coming around. It's been 4 yrs since he was rear-ended at a high speed. He had surgery to repair a bulging disk. It worked for a few days then a fragment broke off and wedged next to the nerve. They re-operated but by that time he had nerve damage. Now he has spinal stenosis due to extreme inflamation of the nerve root, scarring, more bulging of the disks and let's not forget a spinal benign tumor. I can't remember what it's called. It's just something that grows sometimes when there's a trauma.

He tried medicine after medicine. Then we had a medtronic spinal implant put in. It's similar to a tens unit but is implanted. It has reduced his pain 50% and worked great for over a year. He went from being able to not function to doing well enought that he was almost ready to go back to work. Then the scarring around the nerve root got worse and he's miserable again. Now they are talking about a fusion to help with the stenosis.

Pam, this part is for you - Please don't even think about it! My husband has said the same thing and I had to somehow make him understand how much I loved him and what he meant to me and how a large part of me would cease to exist if anything happened to him. He thought he was a burden to me and my life would be better without him. NO WAY! He is my life - he and our children. We are now looking at any information we can get. We are checking out new clinical trials going on around the world that might help. I don't know what is causing your pain but DO NOT GIVE UP. There is something out there - someone that can help you.

I know this is a novel and I hope I didn't tread into a personal matter. You all know each other and I'm new here.