Anybody get severe back / hip pain after radiation?
My 25th and last treatment was mid January. I had a LAR at the end of March. Now I have sciatica for sure. Terrible pain in my left hip/buttock area that radiates to my calf and makes my toes numb.
This flared up about a month ago.
I went to the Emerg because the pain was so bad I thought I had a blockage. They x rayed me and said I wasn’t.
I talked to my radiation oncologist at the follow up and he said it could be part of the reason.
I went to the surgeon and he said it wasn’t related to the surgery, which I find hard to believe.
I made an appt. at my family doctor’s clinic with a non MD practitioner, I can’t remember his title. Anyway he gave me a script for naproxen and a muscle relaxer and told me to try physio and/or acupuncture. The pills did nothing.
I’ve been doing the physio exercises for years since I’ve had disc problems before. I went to a chiropractor / acupuncturist a few times and he hasn’t been able to get my tight side to release.
So I’ve made yet another appointment with a doctor at the clinic and my goal is to get a referral for an MRI at least and hopefully to an orthopaedic surgeon.
It’s pretty awful. I can’t walk for more than a few minutes without needing to sit and wait for the pain to subside. I spend most of the day in bed lying on an ice pack.
I can’t sleep unless I lie on my left side. Every other position is too painful. I’ve been eating Robax like it’s candy.
Just so weird for this to have come up since there was no obvious event that caused the injury. I spent 5 days in the hospital after surgery so that was quite uncomfortable. I was walking a few weeks later but that’s not super strenuous. I didn’t push myself at all physically.
I guess it’s normal for radiation issues to manifest themselves 4 months later or even longer. Hard for me to see the connection though.
I really think I will need surgery. I’m on Xeloda for adjuvant therapy at the moment too. Cycle 2 starts tomorrow. So I can’t imagine I’ll be able to have anything major done until that’s finished.
But I’m in Canada anyway, it will take months to get to surgery. Hell it will take months to even get an MRI done unless I get one at a private clinic in Quebec, but I can’t pay for that now that I barely work.
It’s just weird watching all these medical professionals that were so apparently on the ball with my cancer treatment just kind of shrug off my back problems. I’ve had them before but never like this.
Anyway. Kind of rambled there