Question
Background: 30 year old female, born with talipes in the right leg, tendon lengthened at 18 months, leg difference of 1 inch. No problems through childhood/adulthood with walking running etc.Around 2008 on set of back pain, sent to back strength classes and podiatrist to have insoles made with a lift which took a long time. Back pain was on and off but manageable. Begun wearing the insoles around oct 2010. March 2011 back returns but worse, burning pain in the back when getting up. May 2011 unable to walk due to the pain, pain was all in the right leg, no actual pain in my back. Given tramadol/naproxyn Pain has decreased but remains in right thigh when standing or walking. I have appointment with the consultant in Sept.MRI shows : L3/L4 Small bulge - L4/L5 small tear - L5/S1 moderate disc protrusion to the right - compression/displacement of S1 nerve root.
My question is should I pay to have private steroid injections now or wait till I have seen the consultant who may refer me for them but this could mean I wait a number of months as it is the NHS?
I understand that there is a chance they may not work for me but is it more beneficial to get it done sooner rather than later

Answer
Lauren,

This all depends on your symptoms and pain tolerance, as well as your neurologic exam findings.  If you have pain you can live with for a while, and you have no neurologic signs, e.g. loss of reflexes or foot drop weakness, for example, then you can wait as long as you want.    If you have worsening neuro' signs, then you need to consider the injection soon.  The L5-S1 disc sounds like the culprit.  You should also consider finding a good chiropractor that can do decompressive manipulation (see my web site products/services and look at the video of this).  You can also do both, the injection and the manual chiropractic methods.   
'Hope this was helpful,

Dr. G
www.drgillman.com