Shoreline

Hi Gulf Back Pain. Welcome to the chronic pain forum. I'm not a VET but I think most of us here have been through the ringer with docs that disnt believe or couldn't tell us why we are still suffering from pain despite surgeries and therapies that should have worked in their eyes. All my pain stems from multiple failed fusion attempts and every fusions i had was declared a success at the 4 to 6 month point and continued to be a success in the surgeons eyes right up untill all 3 sets of hardware started snappping bending or failing in some way.

Although I get the VA or your local docs may not be willing to place the blame on gulf war syndrome but do they see anything going on with your back that would explain the pain. DDD is a pretty common DX for anyone over the age of 30 but even if that is the only DX they can find it shouldnt exclude you from finding proper pain management. Ya have to remeber that most of these meds used didnt even exist prior to the invention of oxycontin in 97 but even with the way chronic pain options have changed not every PM doc believes opiates are the best or only option in all cases. It took me 8 years and 3 failed surgeries to find the first PM doc that wasn't completely opiate phobic. After all, most docs were trained that opiates are bad and addicting and no good can come from long term use. Their is a lack of hard data other than patients reporting improvement in quality of life but their are some docs willing to do whatever it takes to improve someone with intractable pain quality of life. Ya just cant give up when you run into someone that isn't willing to help.

Welcome and good luck, Dave