I have been living with back pain since at least 1998. However, at first I didn't realize what was happening to me. It started as spasms on the job (I was a bakery products salesman), then progressed to twiching by 2000. My job didn't help matters, but I had to work to provide for my family. Finally in 2002, the company that I worked for "cooked up" a reason to git rid of me and succeded. So I started another job, and for a while my pain was easing to the point that I began working a lot of overtime (72 to 84 hours per week). Sure, I still had some pain, but I was hanging on. Then in 2005, my lower back began to really start hurting. My doctor prescribed several different anti inflammatory drugs, the one that worked the best was Celebrex. I thought I had found the answer, but after a month of taking it, I started having severe stomach pain. So my doctor placed me on Vicodin 10MG/325MG APAP, and I managed to hang on for nine months. Finally, in January 2006, I could no longer bear the pain and work and took medical leave. I went to a spine specialist, he tried those mini steriod shots in my spine, but to no avail. He sent me for a discogram, that was pure hell, the doctor poking with that needle. So it was determined that I needed a four level lumbar fusion, and in May 2006, I received that surgery. The pain that I was initally in went away, but the surgical pain that was left was horrible. I was taking 80mg Oxycontin every 6 hours, finally 80mg every 4 hours for a total of 480mg a day, not counting the two 10/325mg Percocet every 4 hours as well. After a year, my pain was no longer responding to Oxycontin, so he placed me on 40mg Opana ER, one tablet every 8 hours with 10mg Opana IR as needed. This went on until July 2008, when my Cobra coverage was running out, my doctor was compassionate and gave me a prescription for 90 days worth of the Opana, then a couple of weeks later switched me to two 10mg methadone tablets every eight hours to hold me until my SSDI was approved. On July 31, 2008, I won my disabitity hearing with no trouble. During questioning by my attorney, the judge mercifully stopped the hearing and awarded me a fully favorable bench decision. My attorney was even shocked by the swift decision. Today, my pain has improved somewhat, I take 10mg methadone every 6 hours and 15mg oxycodone hcl (no tylenol) every 4 hours. But the cold winter is hard on me, and for the most part, I'm homebound. But I don't give up. I do my best to keep my mind off of the pain by using my new computer. I'm a VIP member of Windows 7 Forums and spent a lot of time helping others, which gives me some feeling of usefulness and distracts the pain somewhat. Keeping your mind focused on something else helps, though not all the time. Thank you Karen, for having this forum available to us all who needs it. Through it, we know that we're not alone. Happy New Year to everyone.