My advise is to take the muscle relaxers, but in order to have them work all the time you have to take them all the time. A conundrum for sure. I'm still at the stage of the game where I'm taking boatloads of meds to manage my pain. I am hoping there will be a day when I'm only on them for flareups - if anything. I recently tried some different musce relaxers: both baclofen and skelaxin didn't do much at all, Soma worked but I was a zombie on it and now I'm back to Flexeril, my trusty med of some 14 years and I'm now able to use it only twice a day compared to three times a day before. I had to go off it and try some others so I could substantiate my claim to my prescription company that I needed the brand name of Flexeril (I'm allergic to an ingredient in the generics of this med). Anyway, I discovered that Flexeril did work the best for me. It is sedating but not as much as the Soma, and it does work well. I don't know how fast it works though, sounds like you need something to work quickly as you don't take it continuously.

I do have a lotion compounded (made by my pharmacy just for me) it is a lotion having amitypaline 5 mg and lidocaine 5 mg - I rub it in to where I'm hurting and it does take the pain away really fast. I carry a teeny bit in my purse for when I am out. Let me know if you need specifics for this. I hope things will settle down for you!