Dear Ed, Dear Ed, I am also a fellow pain sufferer, I was diagnosed at age 14 with spondylolisthesis, which is a forward slipping of a vertebra. The doctor at the time there was not much to do because my age, I went to see this doctor after a surfing mishap and was unable to walk for a few weeks. After that incident I had few problems until I was 35 years old, after a round of golf my right hip would become very sore the following day. So after about 6 weeks of this hip pain I went to see an orthopedist, and I heard that word that I had heard 20 years earlier, spondylolisthesis. So he had me do physical therapy immediately, but despite the P.T. my condition continued to worsen. Know the pain was going down my right leg and so severe that after being on my feet for 15 minutes or more I was writhing in pain down my right leg. The strange thing was I had little back pain, except when I tried to play golf. So I had my first spinal fusion L5-S1, laminectomy, with screws and rods. I was progressing fairly well with my rehab after surgery, till I went out to lunch at my local city golf course coffee shop, while eating lunch a duck wandered into the restaurant(a employee left the door open) a lady who worked at the golf course tried to scare the bird to leave, instead the bird took off at our booth and right at my head, I spun around to avoid the bird and sprained my back. This hindered my rehab for a few months, but after awhile I started to feel better, to the point where I asked My Doctor if I could start swinging a golf club, this was after about 8 months after the surgery, he said ther should be no reason I counld'nt as he said my fusion looked good . I tried to swing a club off and on for weeks, I was stiff at first but was loosening up as time went on. Then one day I could not swing the club because of the pain, and the pain over the coming months was increasing to the point i was very depressed and on 40mg oxycontin twice a day, but that still was not making much of difference in the pain.I kept going back to this doctor and kept saying everything looked fine and was questioning my sincerity. So I had enough and went to see another doc, he took one glance at my x-ray and said i was not fused or even close, and also the screws had become loose and i was just rattling around. So operation 2 total redo, done anterior and posterior. I am fused but the pain is there every second of every day. One other thing before I was even recovered from the second surgery, I was diagnosed with cancer, had another surgery to remove the cancer, and 2 months of high dose chemo, the good thing was that my stomach hurt so much from the chemo I forgot about my back pain. Though during my first day of chemo I became so violently ill I could not take my oral pain meds, so I was going thru withdrawls on top of everything else till they figured it out and put me on the fentynol patch while on chemo. I would recommend to any one on narcotic pain meds to ask thier doctor for a patch, for emergencies like the flu whe pills wont stay down other wise you have to go to the hospital so they can be administered thru an I.V Thats my story, but the good news is I am going back to school, and hopefully one day I will be able to work again. Yours Truly Cary Spadoni

I had testicular cancer, the good news is they can cure it with chemo, but the bad news is that it is an extremely high dose chemp protocol. And unfortunately my doctor told me that he never saw anyone get so sick from chemo, originally they planned my treatment as an out patient, getting chemo 5 days straight, but going home after each treatment.But I got very sick and they had to keep a close watch over me so I was in the hospital for most of the two months.But I was lucky my neighbor was in the hospital with me at the same time at Hoag Hospitals oncology floor, I watched him die right before my eyes.So I guess things can be always be worse, except I guess by process of elimination there is one poor person who has nobody to look at and say I'm better off, because at that point death probably seems pretty inviting.Sorry for that last part I guess that is a pretty depressing thought. As for the patch it seemed to work O.K but I did not get the full72 hours of pain relief, more like 48 hours. But in my situation it worked pretty good.When I got my cancer, I thought it was good thing in a way, beacause I thought maybe it was causing my back pain beacause it had spread to my lymph nodes.But that was not the case, my surgeon says my pain is from scar tissue that they could not tottaly remove around a nerve for fear if they tried to remove anymore that I could of been paralysed.

I'am in remission now since May 2002.My back pain as far my doctor knows is from scar tissue from my 2 spinal fusions and laminectomies. I have tried just about everything except the morphine pump, which my doctor says I'am too young(39 years old) for the pump.He says that would be too long to have the pump in me, saying that tissue can grow over and around the leads that feed the morphine to the area in the spine that requires it. But thier stuipidest reason was that I would be "married" to them since I would have to come in every 6 weeks to refill the pump, the thing is I see them every 4 weeks to get my schedule 2 oxycontin prescription. One thing that makes my back feel better is going to the pool, it takes all the weight off your spine, I 'am trying to get in shape to go to school,I have been accepted into a polysomnagraphy program( Study of sleep disorders) so with any luck I will be able to finish in 2 years, but my back needs to get much better, I can now only stay away from my bed for 2-3 hours at a time. I'll talk to you later, oh by the way I'am interested in alternative medicine, but for some reason, when I click on to the paged it gives me this page cannot be accessed.. Keep up the good work Ed.