Hi folks
I'm desperate to hear from anyone that is experiencing nerve pain , but not from diabetes .
The situation is that I have experienced a range of symptoms over the last 3 months. These have ranged from inflammation across the sacral area to then (2 weeks later) what I call 'normal' sciatic symptoms , then (1 month later) shooting sciatic pain from sitting to standing, which progressed to not being able to sit down due to excruciating sciatic pain. This is when I had to stop driving and come out of work. I am a 48 year old student nurse in her final 3 moths of training so this has been disrupted and put on hold. The last 4 weeks it has worsened again, with the development of severe and intense pins and needles which are not painful, just very distracting. Plus horrific neuropathic pain all over my leg, present about 60- 70% of the time. This is so bad at times that I cannot put my foot to the floor or touch my skin/ have fabric against, mainly during the night . This is constant thing at night for the last 3-4 weeks , were I am having to get up 3-4 times during the night and try to walk about until if lessens a bit . I then take more medication, (which I hate doing) this makes ne drowsy enough to go to sleep again. However I have only been able to lay in certain positions in bed and not been able to move over due tot eh intense muscle pain.. During all this time I have been to my GP numerous time , who referred me to a physio , which I had to wait 9 weeks for!! SO needing to seek relief sooner, I was under the care of a Chiropractic college, who mentioned something about sacroiliac joint , so for weeks I was certain that I had something wrong with this. My GP did a test for sacro-illiitis and this came back negative. The chiros were not helping and it was during the few weeks there that the condition worsened. So.. I sought out a private physio who was recommended to me and he thought is was a re-occurrence of my L4, L5 S1 discs that were herniated prior to having my hips replaced 3 & 4 years ago. SO treated that area an there was minor improvements for a day or two. In the mean time my NHS physio appointment came round and after assessment he thought I had piriformis syndrome, which again all my symptoms fit. He sent me off with sheet of exercises of which prior to this I would have been able to do as I have done a lot of Pilates and yoga in my time. However at first all the exercises were excruciating at first but a few have got easier as the weeks have gone on , but this is over the period when this awful neuropathic pain has developed and I am at my wits end with it. I'm taking 50-60mg Amitriptyline , 1200mg Gabapentin all at night, as well as Naproxen and Co-dydramol . The awful thing is you cannot relax, as you cant sit down for long periods so as well a sleep disruption , general relaxation is totally disrupted.
'm sorry this has been a long rambling mail, but has anyone had anything similar. I am pretty knowledgeable and have down a lot of research about Piriformis syndrome , but nothing talks about any neuropathic pain , and most explain it just as a muscle spasm and advise the stretches for that particular muscle which I have been doing. I had sciatica for many years on and off prior to hip replacements , but absolutely nothing like this.. it would be good to hear from anyone that has experienced similar and what the prognosis is
Yours
Joanna