Yesterday afternoon, I went and saw a doctor at PAMF to get a second opinion on my back/leg injury and a referral for a PAMF physiatrist (since at PAMF you have to see a GP first before you see a specialist). I have no idea if the physiatrists at PAMF are any good but I’ve had pretty good luck with specialists there so I figured it was worth a shot.

The GP whom I saw felt that all the necessary steps have been taken in my treatment so far. Given my age, she said that conservative treatments (e.g. rest, Advil, chiro, PT) would be employed first. She also said that back injuries do tend to take a long time to heal so my current progress isn’t atypical. She did confirm that the results of my MRI are not bad, there is no serious damage to my spinal cord/nerves so it seems pretty mild. She felt that looking at the MRI report she couldn’t see me needing surgery (yay). She did prescribe an anti-inflammatory medication (from my understanding, something similar to Advil but stronger) in hopes that taking that on a daily basis for a month will reduce the inflammation in my sciatic nerves (and so reduce the pain/tingling in my legs). I’m hoping that the new medication plus another month of PT will resolve the issue. She also did give me a referral for a physiatrist and I scheduled an appointment for early October.

So after that experience, I have some renewed optimism (and renewed faith in my primary GP’s course of treatment, although not so much in her referrals :)) about the problem, although I can’t say that I have any more patience (but I’m really trying to be).