[Maria]

cp,
after my percutaneous discectomy that failed in '92 I had horrendous burning pain in my low back, glutes/piraformis area, quads, and calves and some burning in soles of feet tho the most intense pain was buttocks and legs and this was bilateral.

The pain was BRUTAL. It lasted nearly 5 years and started to fade. In '98 I started taking Neurontin (Gabapentin) 1800mg daily and have been on that dose since which helped greatly.

Right around '98 my low back started really caving on me and giving me horrible pain for which I had to stop working in 2000 as I was missing more work than attending and had long periods of bed ridden low back pain (4-8 weeks at a time).

Was offered a 3 level global fusion in 2001 and then various surgeries later on but it seems that sometime after starting pain medication and ESIs my pain became less pronounced and esp. the tailbone type of pain I would have seems to have pretty much vanished except with prolonged sitting.

It appears my L5S1 finally fused on it's own and I think that helped with much of my pain. Still have probs with L4 tho so all isn't completely good but I do feel the difference for the better most definately.

So it took a long time for nerve pain to calm down for me but back in the early '90's there wasn't much out there in terms of *working with it* or even investigating the pain generators/causes.

I wish you the best and not a prolonged course of pain like my own. I did however make my choices re not having several surgeries offered since 2001 including 2 level ADR and later ADR at L4 and fusion at L5S1.

Then again~ never say never re more spine surgery even tho one might wish that to be so.