Hi Leesa, thanks for your input.
I actually figured sciatica, and that's basically what I'm being given painkillers for, though not enough. Here's the gist of the story...
Sept 08 I was working when my foot slipped off a wet bleacher and I caught myself before falling but jerked pretty hard. I went home that night with my right calf swollen and tender- I figured pulled muscle, but it never got better only worse. So docs thought gastroc tear, and within about a month, the calf got a little better, but my back began hurting, worsening as time went on.
I've had MRI of the calf after it was already healing (that's work comp for ya, never do anything when you need it) which was normal, and eventually a lumbar MRI in March 09, which seems to have different interpretations depending on whose doctors review it. The wc docs say nothing there, my docs say serious herniation, but nobody does anything about anything.
I live in a small town with no specialists of any kind and a PA that prescribes my painkillers reluctantly. I've been on hydrocodone for 2 yrs and I'm limited to a specific number of pills each month, so if the pain is worse some days than others, which naturally it is, I know I'll have to do without at the end of the month because there are no early refills allowed.
I've had trigeminal neuralgia (unrelated) for almost 20 yrs so I know nerve pain when I feel it, and I keep telling everyone that I know that's what this is, but an EMG supposedly came up normal (again, according to the wc docs say) so it's just a back and forth fight for nothing but recognition of the pain I'm in.
The wc insurance is trying to get me to settle out of court, and I know I'm going to end up seeking treatment on my own, so I'm trying to find out more about things like TENS units, ultrasound therapy, inversion therapy and medications- ANYTHING that might possibly be able to help. Honestly, if someone told me that dancing naked covered in peanut butter holding a chicken head would relieve the pain,I might try it. LOL. I'm just SOOOOO
tired of hurting.