MRI results advice please

[pattricia]

Good idea Pat, but if you need to be seen urgent, request the secretary to contact you if they get a cancelation, spinal surgeons are extremely busy, the vast majority of patients tend to be in the same situation as yourself. If your pain is uncontrollable then either see your GP, or in fact in extreme pain situations attend A+E, don't lay there in pain. Another point I would like to make, although peoples intentions may be well founded, listening to others results, such as tumours etc will only make you anxious and increase the pain. Each person is different; don't think of the worst case scenario, if you can get your pain to a level of tolerance then focus on something different until you see your consultant. Whatever you do; DO NOT TAKE ADVICE WHICH COULD ADVERSLY AFFECTS YOUR CONDITION.

 

A good site once the cause of your spinal pain is identified, apart from your consultant is this site, http://www.spine-health.com/, very much American, the site is run by spinal surgeons & those who suffer in the same way as you. Just be careful on the advice you take. The website has a forum, run by extremely professional moderators.

 

Correct. I only gave this advice as my brother in law was a Consultant Surgeon and had advised me to do this. I had to follow his advice once, and got things moving quickly.

[pattricia]

Actually it's likely to slow things up, since the same advice would apply to every single patient.

 

Yes, but every single patient does not realise they can ring the Consultants secretary.

[HeadingNorth]

Yes, but every single patient does not realise they can ring the Consultants secretary.

 

I'll grant you that. There are two possible scenarios - one patient is selfish and jumps the queue at the expense of all the others; or all the patients are selfish and nobody gains.

[Saffy]

If you're in so much pain i can totally understand hoping that calling the secretary may speed things up!!

[Arguendo]

I'll grant you that. There are two possible scenarios - one patient is selfish and jumps the queue at the expense of all the others; or all the patients are selfish and nobody gains.

 

Oh come HN, let’s not start beating someone because their asking for advice because they’re in pain, it’s a bit unsympathetic to say the least; I guarantee you this if you were in so much pain you wouldn’t hesitate at ‘jumping the queue’ if you had the chance. However this is not the case, by ringing the secretary, & letting them know you are available at very short notice to attend, actually saves the NHS money. You do get patients, who cancel because they no longer feel it necessary, or the appointment is inconvenient, clinic secretaries ring patients usually in advance to ensure they are able to attend, on many occasions the patients hasn’t had the foresight or decency to cancel, therefore the appointment goes unattended costing the NHS vasts ammount of money. So in effect, by placing your name with the secretary, you are saving the NHS money.

[scoop]

Ringing up and hassling people is not jumping the queue.

 

If you don't make a noise, no one will even notice that you are sat languishing waiting for a routine appointment to come through -it is assumed that you are ok.

 

As a nurse, I'm very aware that you can hurry things up by going a different route.

 

In my case, I spoke to the secretary, my GP wrote to my consultant to chivvy them up, but they were having real difficulties in the neuro surgery dep at that time, and it wasn't until I complained about how long my appointment was taking through PALS that anything happened - extra clinics were laid on - so everyone waiting benefitted, not just me.

 

Ring everyone involved in your husbands care and make sure they realise how much distress he's in. It may also be worth asking your GP to refer him to the physio and the pain clinic as these appointments will also take a while to come though.

[Arguendo]

Ringing up and hassling people is not jumping the queue.

 

If you don't make a noise, no one will even notice that you are sat languishing waiting for a routine appointment to come through -it is assumed that you are ok.

 

As a nurse, I'm very aware that you can hurry things up by going a different route.

 

In my case, I spoke to the secretary, my GP wrote to my consultant to chivvy them up, but they were having real difficulties in the neuro surgery dep at that time, and it wasn't until I complained about how long my appointment was taking through PALS that anything happened - extra clinics were laid on - so everyone waiting benefitted, not just me.

 

Ring everyone involved in your husbands care and make sure they realise how much distress he's in. It may also be worth asking your GP to refer him to the physio and the pain clinic as these appointments will also take a while to come though.

 

Although I agree in some part Scoop, I don’t feel the physio would be the right route at present, until a diagnosis as to the cause is established; a physio could potentially make the condition worse, the physiotherapist will wait for the post surgeon consultation, the surgeon may then refer for physio input, as for pain clinics it’ll take the same process.

 

There are two types of pain clinics, one is basically the acute pain team, primarily hospital based & deals with newly onset pain, or pain which is less than three months old, trauma, post surgical etc, they will only do what the GP can do & don’t take referrals from the community.

 

Chronic pain teams is the other, they won’t see a patient until the pain experienced has been deemed as now being over three months old, after this period it is then considered Chronic.

 

And unfortunately PALS no longer exist, but as you rightly point out by letting the GP & consultant know of how you are coping will help in speeding you consultation up, same as if the symptoms change become further complicated, then these are warning signs which need immediate attention, hence the reason not to be afraid to attend A&E.

[scoop]

Although I agree in some part Scoop, I don’t feel the physio would be the right route at present, until a diagnosis as to the cause is established; a physio could potentially make the condition worse, the physiotherapist will wait for the post surgeon consultation, the surgeon may then refer for physio input, as for pain clinics it’ll take the same process.

 

There are two types of pain clinics, one is basically the acute pain team, primarily hospital based & deals with newly onset pain, or pain which is less than three months old, trauma, post surgical etc, they will only do what the GP can do & don’t take referrals from the community.

 

Chronic pain teams is the other, they won’t see a patient until the pain experienced has been deemed as now being over three months old, after this period it is then considered Chronic.

 

And unfortunately PALS no longer exist, but as you rightly point out by letting the GP & consultant know of how you are coping will help in speeding you consultation up, same as if the symptoms change become further complicated, then these are warning signs which need immediate attention, hence the reason not to be afraid to attend A&E.

 

As I pointed out, a physio referral is likely to take some time, and hopefully the patient will have been seen by the spinal surgeons by the time they get their appointment.

 

That aside, the physio are independant practitioners with expertise in back pain and may often negate intervention from the spinal team - in fact a believe a senior member of the spinal team is a physio who runs his own diagnostic clinics.

 

The PALS team has been replaced by the patient services team, who provide te same service and should definitely be able to help the OP.

 

http://www.sth.nhs.uk/patients/patient-services

[wendybr]

thank you very much for all your replies.

 

Just to let you know a bit more he is already on tramador, naproxen and gabapentin which are having little effect.

 

we have been to a & e on 2 occasions but both were befor the scan so we were told to wait for that befor they could do anything which is fair.

 

the reason for the scan is to discover what exactly is causing the pain although they seem to be thinking that it is stenosis. either caused by wear and tear or a problem with a disc.

 

he is still no better and can virtually not sleep as it is so painful to lay down, we are currently having a few hours sleep each night. during the day he is pottering about in the house but is unable to get out as car journeys are too painful

 

we are hoping the scan shows somethig up and they phone for him. there is still the worry that as they only got 75% of the MRI finished befor he pressed the stop button there wont be enough to look at.

 

thanks again

[HeadingNorth]

Oh come HN, let’s not start beating someone because their asking for advice because they’re in pain

 

I'm not having a go at the OP's husband. It wasn't his idea to try and paint his own suffering as being more important than anybody else's. Nor the OP's, come to that.