the doctors say i shouldn't be in pain at age 26. duh! thats why i went to the doctor. the pain is real and they tell me pretty much to just deal with it because i am young. what should i do?
Q: how do i get my doctor to take my back pain seriously at age 26?
Answers (3)
8/ 8/08 6:40pm
I suggest you find another doctor. Thats not an appropriate answer in this day and age. Can you complain to your hospital's or your health plans administration? Many hospitals have review procedures for patients who do not believe they're getting acceptable care.
In cases of pain that do not respond to ordinary pain killers you might begin to question whether you have fibromyalgia - a disease that does occur early in life and does mostly affect women. People with FM usually have widespread pain as well as other symptoms such as fatigue, difficulty concentrating, poor sleep etc. If this sounds like it might be you check out the FM pages on this site.
http://www.healthcentral.com/chronic-pain/fibromyalgia.html
Good luck!
8/ 9/08 3:29am
I feel for you, I ran into the same problems. My severe back pain started at 29 and the first Dr. I saw tried to write it off as a muscle spasm even though I had shooting pain down my leg and the entire leg was numb. I was told I was just too young to have anything seriously wrong. I went to another Dr. that agreed to do a MRI just to be sure. I get the results and SURPRISE SURPRISE L4 was bulging and L5-S1 was herniated severely with "extreme impingement of the nerve root" Have they run any tests on you at all? What are your sypmtoms? My advice is to get to another Dr., if you havent had any tests run tell them you want an MRI whether they bellieve you or not. At least then you will have a starting point. Its a rough road ahead for you I injured my back on july 18th of last year since then I have had ESIs, physical therapy and finally surgery to fix the herniation. After the surgery I was ecstatic there was no more pain.... for a month until I somehow managed to reherniate it again. lol Ive had another surgery and now my discs are collapsing ><. This is something that needs to be nipped in the bud so you need to find a DR that will actually listen to you. Good luck :)
2/ 2/09 5:08pm
I am in the same boat as you. I first injured my back (chiropractor called it a sprain) at age 21. Ever since then, every few months my back will go out on me ranging from limping around or to the point where I'm pretty much bedridden for a couple of days. I have upper back knots that get so bad they affect my breathing, then the lower back goes out on me. I'm starting to feel what I think is sciatica and have extreme hip stiffness at times. My doctors never once sent me for further testing, but only prescribed muscle relaxers and ibuprofen 800s. I'm 27 now and when I do housework or cook I wear a back brace and sneakers in order to postpone my sure-to-come back ache. I only take over-the-counter pain meds (Ibuprofen...) and sometimes it won't touch the pain or even prolong the onset. I feel like I have a long road ahead if no one is going to help me with this. I don't have children yet, but I can't imagine what it will be like when I'm trying to run around after them.
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