Hi. My name is Shelly. I'm 26 years old and I have chronic back pain. When I was a little girl I enjoyed doing all the things that kids my age enjoyed. I liked to ride my bike and skate. I loved to run, hike in the woods and play at the playground. I remember having many races with my friends. I think my favorite was going for long walks. I really had an active childhood.  

When I was a teenager I loved to sing and dance. I worked after school and on weekends, but I still found time to run around with my friends. Roller coaster rides became my favorite summer time activity. Even as a teenager, I still went for long walks.
Every year, along with my sister and our friends, I would walk for The March of Dimes in Walk America.

While I was growing up from time to time I would have episodes of back pain.  I remember once, when I was 15, I put a really cool stereo in layaway, I worked very hard to pay for it myself. It was almost paid for when I had a particularly bad episode with my back. I was in so much pain. The pain stopped me from working for a couple of weeks. I remember how disappointed I was when I realized that since I could not keep up with the lay away payments I would not be able to get my stereo.

My pain did get better, however, and I went back to work. When I came home from work on my 16th birthday my stereo was sitting in the dining room. My parents paid it off for me. I was so happy.  

Anyway I am 26 now. And I have now been in chronic pain for about 5 and a half years.  I have two children, my daughter is 7 and my son is 4, they are a lot of work. I recently became a single mom. One of the problems in our marriage was my pain.  My pain had become debilitating and my husband could not deal with it,  

For the first two years of my pain I continued to work and tried my very best to ignore the pain. At times my pain was so severe I was in tears by the time I got home. Each day I took more and more aspirin.

Finally I went to the doctor. I was told I was too young to have back trouble. One doctor told me I had a urinary tract infection. When the infection was gone the pain was still there.  

Doctors kept giving me muscle relaxers, pain medication, anti-inflammatory medicine, and physical therapy. None of which made my back feel any better. The pain was still severe. I had x-rays taken and EMG’s done.  One doctor said my insurance company would not allow me to get a MRI. He also echoed all the other doctors by repeating the old line, “you're too young to have
back trouble.” I discovered that my doctor lied to me, I had been approved for a MRI. The MRI showed that I had 3 herniated disc.  Not long after the test results I had surgery on one disc. I still don't know why they didn't do surgery on the others. After the surgery the pain went from bad to worse. It was beyond severe.

After about 9 months, because of insurance changes, I had to get a new doctor. This doctor not only said I was too young to have a bad back, but she also accused me of being a drug seeker. Of course this meant I had to find yet another “new doctor.”

I went to a pain management center and the herniated discs were still there with no change and the pain continued to climb.

They sent me to another pain management center. There I received injections at the bottom of my spine called a caudal block. These injections were supposed to help the pain going down my legs. I was informed that I could have only three of these injections
a year.

These injections were not only painful to receive, (I bruised my mother's hand once), but more painful to recover from. It took a week just to get over the pain of the injection. The leg pain relief that these injections brought was very temporary and they did nothing for the pain in my back. After two injections I decided not to get the third.

Next came another kind of injection. I don't remember the name of these injections, but I received several of them in my joints to help with the back pain. Those were more painful to get and even more painful to recover from.

The doctors did continue to give me muscle relaxers, Paxil, Atavil, Oxycotton, but no real pain medication. Many doctors have told me that there is pain medication out there that would help the pain, but each also told me that they do no prescribe these medications because of the possibility of becoming addicted to them.

It has been so depressing and so discouraging. I started to have panic attacks. I believe these attacks were a result of the pain and my disintegrating marriage.  My children and I are now living with my mom and dad.

After every doctors appointment my little boy would say, “Can you pick me up now Mommy?” and I would always have to answer "no". I have not picked up my little boy since he was 10 months and it breaks my heart.

It has been about 6 months since I have been to the doctors. At this point in my life I have decided to take a break from seeing doctors. I’m not saying everyone should quit going to doctors or that there is anything wrong with doctors. I just had to make
that decision for me.  For my sanity. It is really depressing when you think someone is there to help you and there is nothing they can do. Right now I have decided to leave my back up to God.


Praying for all of us,

Shelly Zumwalde
http://sites.netscape.net/slzumwalde/chronicbackpain.html

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