Question
My husband, who is 31, was diagnosed with having bulging and herniated discs,and degenerative disc disease about 5 years back. He continued to work and started noticing sciatica along with his back pain. He has been to different doctors and even a chiropractor who did decompression. He has also tried getting shots in his spine, which would help a little for about a day, and then the pain would come back. He was put on Fentanyl patches, 75mg, which seemed to help. The problem that he is having now is, he finally came to the point that he can't work anymore and is now without insurance. He also has trouble sleeping due to the pain. He has applied for disability, was denied and we are now appealing it. In the meantime though, the only thing we can afford is a prescription of vicodin (10/325) and they don't do  anything for him unless he takes a large amount of them at one time. Which is something he doesn't want to do, but that's the only way he can do simple things like cut the grass or play with our kids. My question is, what else can he do since he has no insurance? Are there any doctors out there who do "pro-bono" work? Is there any way to get the medicine he needs without spending half of our income for his correct medicine? This has been hell on him and us as a family. I don't know what to do anymore. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer

Hanna Somatic Educatio Hello, Jennifer.

My offering is better than medication.

First a few words.

The bulging discs and sciatica are symptomatic of one thing:  very tight spinal extensor (back) muscles.  No medication can significantly help with that nor, as you have found, can manipulation (e.g., "spinal decompression"), but somatic training can do the job.

More on that, but first, please see my write-ups on back pain, bulging discs and sciatica.

http://somatics.com/chronic_back_pain.htm
http://www.somatics.com/sciaticasymptoms-piriformissyndrome.htm
http://somatics.com/back_pain_terms.htm

That will clarify much for you.

Somatic training frees chronically contracted muscles by retraining brain-level muscular control.  The articles say more.

Here's a starting point for your husband.

Spine Waves exercise:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSMnexgtYgI
He should do this exercise sequence at least twice daily.  He'll experience substantial muscular relaxation and spinal decompression (lengthening) after a few days.  The effects are cumulative.

After that, if you wish a recommendation, please contact me directly at [email protected].

regard,
Lawrence Gold