[Maria]

I've not had one tho my father did at age 87 and he had pain for about 3 months at least. He did get better tho even tho he had really bad degenerative disc disease, osteoporosis and arthritis at least the fracture healed and didn't bother him nor did the other things seem to cause him any excessive or ongoing pain.

I have to ask this because when I was younger it was very difficult for me to sit still no matter how much pain I was in and I was kind of always setting myself back (hurt my back in my 20's). I wonder how active you might be? I know you said you're taking pain meds which weren't even prescribed at all back when I hurt my back tho non steroidal antiinflammatory meds were prescribed (not helpful).

Do the meds help the pain even tho they make you feel all the other stuff (loopy etc)? Are you able to be somewhat active because you do take meds? Do you have the same pain everyday or do you sometimes have "flare ups" or episodes where your back is much worse? What type of pain do you experience/where?

I'm wondering if the disc below vertebrae (do you mean L5) is what is causing the chronicity of your pain or is L4 disc causing this pain? If you've had an MRI how big is the disc bulge?

Also from what you said it sounds like you were told you're not a candidate for surgery. Does that mean that you were not given more diagnostic testing (MRI, discogram) to determine which disc is the problem and how much of a problem it might be?

Has your doctor said your fracture has healed?

I think if your age were not of concern that even if you had a compression fracture that if that healed that doesn't mean that the disc bulge couldn't be a problem or other things so I think it's good to continue to keep your doctor informed about your ongoing pain and any increase in pain esp severe and unrelenting, and any other signs you may have been told to watch for like loss of bowel and bladder tone (incontinence), extreme weakness or numbness of the lower extremities and if your foot is starting to drop or drag.

Good luck. I know it's awful to be young and limited by pain tho it's just awful to be limited by pain period.