What should I do??!

What should I do??

I have what's called Sciatica. My Sciatic nerve has inflamed and irritated. Usually this goes away within a few weeks or months, but I have had it for 2 1/2 years now. I was outside laying mulch when it started acting up again about 3 weeks ago. It hurts more than ever because none of the doctors I've seen will do anything to help me. They keep telling me to do my stretches and if that doesn't work to go to physical therapy but I've BEEN doing my stretches and the physical therapy hurts too bad. He prescribed me Ibuprofen 800's. They weren't helping me at all and ended up giving me a stomach ulcer because I wasn't aware that I had to take them with food. And no, it doesn't say to on the bottle. I'm tired of not being able to sleep at night. I'm tired of having to wake my husband up in the mornings to help me get up. I'm tired of missing work and being threatened to be fired because I can't function properly.

4 weeks ago
I know that there is some sort of pain meds out there that will at least take the edge off. I'm going to see a new doctor today. What should I do if she gives me the same answer? I'm to the point where I'd rather have my neck snapped then have to deal with this much longer. Any suggestions?

If PT is causing you to have more pain I would be inclined to say:
1. You are receving the wrong type of treatment...you should walk out feeling better...sciatica is not one of those things where you should feel worse after your exercises.
2. You've been getting the right treatment but you are a non-responder and should follow up for further medical testing such as an MRI.

If you have not been already, I highly suggest you see a PT with MDT experience. (mechanical diagnosis and therapy). The accuracy of an experienced MDT therapist is about 90% as accurate as an MRI for detecting signficant disc derrangement. Not everyone can be helped with the MDT approach, but the vast majority of those with mechanical pain are...and those who do not find a direction of movement that relieves the symptoms (and who also have their pain increased by all movements) within 3-7 visits have consistently shown to demonstrate significant disc extrusion or herniation and are usually the small percentage of people who actually are helped by surgery.

My point is that you need a proper assessment to differentiate whether your sciatica is mechanical in nature...if so a good MDT therapist should be able to tell you within 3-7 visits whether or not you can be helped conservatively. If your pain is non mechanical in nature (ie, has a medical cause or if you have strong psychosocial issues or emotional attachments to your pain), then this requires an entirely different approach. If you have mechanical pain, but have symptoms of nerve entrapment or extrusion (not responding to MDT), then you need to be following up with a neurosurgeon.

If your PT has no MDT experience, I highly suggest you find one who does...or go to http://www.mckenziemdt.org to find a credentialed provider.