If you've ever had severe sciatica pain, you'll find this blog post a heck of a lot more interesting than if you haven't. Usually that nerve pain is produced by problems with the spine, either degenerative or following an injury.
I wrote about my current bout with sciatica back on March 23 in "If you're wondering about my absence, the answer is sciatica." An excerpt:
It can be an extremely annoying pain. My worse moments have been in the middle in the night when I need to use the bathroom, or when I get up after sleeping. A few times I was almost unable to move from my bed. When I tried, the pain was so intense I'd cry out uncontrollably, and needed help from my wife to just put my pants and shoes on.
Now I can do that on my own, though I use a single crutch to hobble into the bathroom, the pain is so bad. When I'm asked to rate the pain on a scale from 1-10, I say that at its worst, it's a 10.
Given the occasional high intensity of that pain, which otherwise is just really annoying (though I'm doing better now, perhaps thanks to acupuncture), I've been highly motivated to get the health care system moving as quickly as possible toward treatment for the sciatica.
However, aside from physical therapy, which I got after only a 5-week wait, and acupuncture, which I got on my own with less than a week's wait, it took me a bit over five months from when I first contacted my primary care doctor about the increased discomfort from the sciatica that I've been dealing with since 2020, until today, when I got two epidural steroid injections.
In pain time, it felt a lot more than five months. But in health care system time, this is all too typical. Maybe even better than typical, since I have a Medicare MedAdvantage plan that is fairly generous and pretty responsive to referral requests.
Still, there are annoying hoops to jump through all along the way. For example, my wife has had three epidural injections that have helped her sciatica pain a lot. For me to get one, my primary care provider said that I needed a Lumbar Spine MRI. And in order to get the MRI, I needed six weeks of physical therapy, a Lumbar Spine X-ray, and something else that I've forgotten.
After that, of course, it took more time to be seen by several specialists. Some of them were clearly understaffed and overworked. In one case, I was shocked when I was told that it would take a week and a half to two weeks to schedule an appointment. Not to be seen at an appointment, just to schedule an appointment. That was a first for me.
And our health care system isn't under the stress of Covid as it used to be. When I first got severe sciatica in 2020, I could understand why it wasn't possible to schedule a lumbar spine MRI, given that so many resources were going to care for Covid patients.
Now, though, the health care system seems to be under "normal" continual stress. My aging baby boomer generation must be partly to blame, given our increased medical needs. But my wife and I are both finding that now it takes much longer to get doctor appointments. Something is stressing the health care system, and i'm not sure what it is.
Here's my chronology.
December 8, 2023. I ask via MyChart for a referral from my primary care provider to Salem Health Rehabilitation Center, saying:
Dr. Gyuricska, sorry to hear that you're leaving Salem Health soon. I'll miss you. Wish you the best for your new course in life. I'm messaging you because I'd like a repeat referral to Salem Health Rehab Center for my right leg problem. The sciatica continues. What concerns me now is a different sensation in the right leg, some transitory unsteadiness/weakness after sleeping or sitting in a soft chair. Sort of weirdly, the sciatica pain is a bit less. The new problem might go away soon, but with the holidays upon us I figured that a physical therapy referral now would mean I could be seen after the first of the year. If I wait until January, naturally the wait to see a physical therapist, hopefully the same one I saw before, would be even longer.
December 11, 2023. Referred to Salem Health Rehabilitation Center for physical therapy.
January 5, 2024. Medicare wellness exam. Got advice to use BioFreeze to reduce stronger sciatica pain, which, sadly, isn't "going away soon" as I'd hoped on December 8.
January 15, 2024. Had first physical therapy session.
February 23, 2024. Primary care appointment about sciatica. Referred for Lumbar Spine X-ray which I got on same day.
March 9, 2024. Had Lumbar Spine MRI. Numerous problems found, including spinal stenosis.
March 12, 2024. Referred to Salem Health Spine Center by primary care provider.
March 13, 2024. Had last of six physical therapy sessions.
March 14, 2024. Notified by Salem Health Spine Center to make appointment with Capital Neurosurgery Specialists neurosurgeon.
March 14, 2024. Referred to Salem Pain and Spine Specialists by primary care provider.
March 18, 2024. Had scoliosis X-ray at request of neurosurgeon.
March 26, 2024. Had appointment with neurosurgeon. Epidural steroid injections at two spine locations were recommended as first therapeutic step, which also would have diagnostic value.
April 8, 2024. At my request, referred by primary care provider to Portland doctor who performs MILD (Minimally Invasive Lumbar Decompression) for consultation about this possibility.
April 10, 2024. Had appointment with Physician Assistant at Salem Pain and Spine Specialists. It was agreed that I should get epidural steroid injections.
April 16, 2024. Had appointment with Portland doctor's Physician Assistant.
April 29, 2024. Had first acupuncture treatment, which I chose to do.
May 9, 2024. Had second acupuncture treatment.
May 13, 2024. Had two epidural steroid injections at Salem Pain and Spine Specialists.
July 1, 2024. Follow-up appointment scheduled with neurosurgeon.
Hey Brian
Hopefully their is some relief from your pain....
Regards
Posted by: Willam J | May 23, 2024 at 06:12 AM