Re: pain management

ok more specific. in 1996 i was the front passenger in a car crash.. the driver hit t telephone pole at 95mph. the front passenger door took the hit..we hit it sideways and thats where i was sitting. i broke my lower back, my pelvic bone snapped in half, and i broke my right hip in three spots.. i laid in bed for 6 months and recovered..i graduated high school in 98 and started doing physical labor a year later...ive continued to doing plumbing up until a few months ago..1 of my discs got damaged during the accident but i was still able to work..about a year and a half ago my back started bothering me, i ended up getting an mri and found out that my L4, L5, and S1 were herniated..i recieved 3 epidoral/ cortison shots over the course of a month and a half..i never stopped working during the shots..but after a few months it started hurting again and i left that field...i couldnt seem to make the same kind of money so i returned to that work 7 months later. about 7 months ago my back started hurting again and i went to my pain management doc and got a script for pain meds..i couldnt deal with the pain..it starts on the right side of my lower back and radiates up to about my shoulder blade and goes down as far as the back of my right thigh..my leg will go numb on occasion..i was digging up concrete 2 months ago and as i stood up with one of the pieces i felt a pop in my back and my legs both went numb..i toughed it out for the rest of the day. told my employer about what happened and went home..the pain progressively got worse over the next few hours and then i went to the hosiptal..they took an x-ray and said i was having spasams..and sent me on my way..i went to a workmans comp doctor the following day and was put on leave for a few days..my back started getting worse over the time so i was then out until i can get an mri.. that was a month ago..through this entire time ive been taking a high amount of pain meds..all the doctors keep saying is to keep taking them until we figure out what to do..the mri showed 3 herniated discs..and the one disc is bulging so much that it is putting pressure on a bundle of nerves that is causing my siatic nerve to act up and i have lost reflexes in my right knee and right ankle...so that the extent of it..but my problem is all they have been doing is pumping me up with percocet 10/325 and oxycontin 80mg..i either take one or the other not both..and if i dont take one or the other within the first few hours that i am awake i start to get shaky and start going through withdrawl..i dont want to live off of pills for the rest of my life and i really dont want to take them at all anymore..im looking for advice on how to get off the pills and get rid of the pain...more importantly getting off the pills..im taking about 4-5 percocets at the same time cause my tolerance has risen so much after the last few months that 1 or 2 dont do anything..if i take the oxy i only take 1 and it pretty much lasts all day for me and i dont have to take anything else..but i havent been able to go even one day without taking anything..i notice that if i sleep no matter if its late ( 12 noon) or 7am i start to get the urge for the pill about 1-2 hours after waking up...what should i do? Tweet