Chronic primary pain

[Franchi Matt]

Ok - so my ongoing back problems have now been identified as chronic primary pain.... after years of being in the NHS loop, facet joint treatment on my spine two years ago and the pain came back and really upped its game... another new consultant showed me my MRI and its pretty normal now - being told after surgery two years ago that I should stop physical work as I could end up in a wheelchair, so I wound down my business and semi retired.... I have mildly googled it - as that's what the consultant suggested he has referred me to some kind of team who he thinks can sort it but a brief read indicates that in some prople they never find the cause OR a cure...
Now its been a long road and pain is pain, however- entering once more into the realms of the NHS again might well and truly test my resolve - dont like the feeling of a hospital - so wondering if I'm just better off throwing the towel in and living with pain than embarking on another medical mission that won't help anyway.
Any advice from someone who's had this or knows someone with this greatly appreciated.
And no - before you ask like the consultant did - I had no abusive trauma as a kid, I asked him if he ever had as a consultant....

 

[User00053]

Sorry to hear and have also been in the hands of the nhs all I can say it’s a lottery, but you might just drop on the right person and find a game changer. In the end for me it was non conventional methods that sorted the pain and helped with the problem.

 

[timbrayford]

If you haven't already done so try seeing an osteopath. I too have been fobbed off by that we might never find the cause nonsense by the NHS

 

[Andy seatrout]

…another vote for osteopathy; read some reviews, find a good one and book in a series of appointments (6 as a start) it’s amazing what they can do…. It’ll hurt but if your MRI is showing ‘normal’ then what have you got to lose???

 

[Pedro]

One of the real things about growing older is not really that things start to fail a bit, or I get pain sometimes (I suspect nothing like yours though Franchi) but the NHS. Not the people really, but the system.

Attempting to get an appointment at the doctors is SO frustrating to the extent that oft times I'll just suffer on rather than have the aggro of trying to get seen. Then when you do get seen, especially if you need to be seen at a hospital, there's the interminable waiting for an appointment, to the extent it's been that long, you have to remember what it's for. Then you go to the appointment and have to wait in a room full of people you normally wouldn't be seen dead with on an uncomfortable chair and start eventually to get drowsy. Then you're called in and granted your audience with the clinician and you come out, only to think of all the things you wanted to say to him/her but didn't. And often, you find yourself no further forwards afterwards ("We'll give you another scan in 3 months time to see how it's progressing"). AAarhh!

Sometimes, the cure (I use the word "cure" advisedly) is worse than the disease.

 

[enfieldspares]

I had through the NHS acupuncture. It didn't do squat. But during the treatment programme the lent me a TENS machine to try. That was a revelation.

I used it as instructed. The woman said imagine you are in a crowd. At a football match and whilst everyone is shouting the person next to you is whispering to you.

The pain is the shouting. The whispering is the small but noticeable trickle of electricity.

Your body concentrates on the small electric trickle and so the pain is ignored. Just as you concentrate in the whispering and don't "hear" the shouting

TENS don't work for everyone but it may work for the OP. And on eBay they're under a tenner. I hope it might for the OP.

 

[Dalua]

As you say, pain is pain. However, some pain is useful, indicating a problem of some kind: and some is not.

Is the team you've been referred to a chronic pain team?