Doctor says "No surgery on my back" yet keeps me on morphine, why?

[Cindy D]

I have 3 bulging discs, stenosis and scoliosis. I have to use a walker during an attack, have no control from the waist down, just pure pain. I go to the hospital and get shot after shot of dilaudid until the pain subsides. I can't even urinate, they have to use a cathater because all I feel is pain and can't make it work. Has anyone else had these kind of attacks? What have they done for you? I just stay on Morphine and if they get out of control, I go to the hospital for the dilaudid. Any ideas?
Thanks.

[MrsNaeNay]

get a new doctor or a second opinion, maybe even a third. those kind of doctors all have their own way of treating people and maybe you can get a doctor to prescribe dilaudid so you'll have a supply for emergencies or for attacks so you don't have to spend 500 bucks every time you go to the ER.

[#1Patriot]

Cindy, I know what your going through!! You have my sympathy for what its worth. I too have 3 going on 4 degen. discs in my lumbar along with bone spurs and lots of scar tissue from all the steroid injections that did nothing but create scar tissue!The reason your Dr. wont do surgry is that they have all most NO luck fusing more than 1 or 2 levels and often make it worse when they try to fuse more. I have seen "The Best" spine surgeons in 2 states and not one will help me! My Dr. has me up to over a 1000mgs. of morphine per day + oxy codone for break through pain. They were able to remove 2 herniated discs in my neck and fuse it with a steel plate and cadaver bone but I have since developed a stenosis and the discs above and below the plate have degenerated. Now they want to go back in and fuse my entire cervical spine! FUUUUK THAT! Never again! Even though I still wake up screaming every night with pain in my neck and back and I'm only 43 and have been living with this since 1998!

[Amanda Kirchner]

I have 3 extruded discs (for those of you who don't know, a bulge has 4 levels of severity: bulging, herniated, protruded and extruded being the worst before a rupture) and 2 herniated discs all in my lower back along with lumbar spinal stenosis, degenerative disc disease, and fibromyositis (fibromyalgia with tumor-like "knots" on the ends of some of the nerves), and my doc says the same thing.

Their reasoning is that the spine doesn't finish developing until your mid 20's. So, right now, I'm only 21 and instead of going out with friends and having fun, I lie in bed crying because of the pain and have to have a walker to get around. The worst are the sudden attacks. It's like all of a sudden, you can't feel anything alongside your sciatic nerve that would allow you to function, but the pain is incredible. Like a lightning storm down that nerve or a hot poker sensation.

I can't take morphine (allergic), but I've found Duragesic (fentanyl) is a Godsend. I've had a couple days that I could lose the walker and just use a cane on the right side (I have a nerve that was crushed, so now there's a "dead spot" in my right leg). I know to a lot of people, it won't sound like much, but when you have people like us that spend their whole lives, basically, in pain- it's a lot.

Good luck.

PS- Don't let them talk you into trying chiropracting. It does more harm than good.