Hi Linda,

You sound miserable. I've had back issues for about 19 years now. It's interesting that my pain mgt doc would always ask me if I had any groin pain (which I never had) when I would go in for my injections. The type of injections he was giving me were SI facet joint injections.

I agree with you to try conservative treatment before surgery. Surgery is a crap shoot ......you could be better or you could be worse.

I've been on all the meds you listed. It seemed that they would work for a while and then became ineffective.

Most recently I had a laminectomy/decompression L3 - S1 and a fusion at L4-L5. A month before I was to go back to work I developed aweful pain in my SI joint and after a series of ineffective injections to my SI facet, I had a rhizotomy (RF ablation) a week ago.

This is a wonderful site with a wealth of information and ideas. Take care!

Rhonda