Hi everyone

Flossy

Hiya. Just thought I’d introduce myself. I’m a 53 year old retired nurse. Diagnosed Osteoarthritis at the age of 30 following an accident at work. I now have grade 4 Osteoarthritis in my ankle, facet joint syndrome L3 L4 L5 S1. I am going to see my back surgeon today to discuss Ryzolisis which to be honest I’m not happy about getting done as it can cause incontinence which I already suffer from. See what he has to say.
Thankyou for accepting ne & looking forward to chatting with you all x

YvonneH

Hi @Flossy

It's great to meet you, so you have osteoarthritis in your spine and ankle and your consultant wants you to think about Ryzolisis. It's a procedure to interfere with signals from one of the nerves responsible for pain so they don't travel, thus making it less painful for you.

Our website doesn't cover this treatment yet but here's something given out to patients in Gwent regarding the procedure

http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/866/PIU1003%284%29%28ABUHB%29%28Active%29%28DEC%2019%29.pdf

I didn't see mention of incontinence but I agree it is certainly something to take into account, especially as we get older 😉 I'm in that group myself!

Let us know how you work through to your decision, taking a list of questions with you is always a good idea, I tend to write them down and hand them to the consultant so he can assess which order to deal with them

Good luck with your decision

Yvonne s

Flossy

Thanks Yvonne. I’ve just been to see my consultant and he knows my fears of this procedure. He’s agreed to give me some more steroid injections. He’s just informed me that due to government rules & non funding your only allowed one lot of steroid injections for back pain. I find this appalling. Don’t know if anybody else had heard about this.

phoenixoxo

Hi Flossy,

Welcome from me too 🙂

I hadn't heard about restrictions on steroid injections, but it doesn't surprise me. Last year I had a bit of a struggle to persuade my surgery to continue to prescribe sugar-coated ibuprofen tablets, as apparently they're slightly more expensive than the standard film-coated sort (which gives me the runs, unfortunately!). These days it seems the NHS is keener than ever to cut costs where it can.

Best wishes,

Phee

numptynora

Hello Flossy and welcome, I didn't know about the restrictions on steroid injections, but I'm not surprised as my GP's surgery has cut down on prescribing a lot of meds, even the ones I have regularly, I now have to ask for on a monthly basis.