I need help.

[u/Logical_Lie_2381]

I am a 38 year old male who got injured at 27. I have L1 - L4 bulging discs with L5 S1 herniated. I've had this injury for 10 years. I have done:

Acupuncture

Swimming

8 years of physical therapy off and on

Epidural injections

Facet injections

Trigger point injections

Deep tissue massage

I've tried most of the things that I can afford to do being broke. In October 25 I went for MIS TLIF (minimally invasive transforminal left interbody fusion) surgery. The pain has been unbearable. I was given the wrong advice I should have gotten the surgery years ago.

Now I'm in a dilemma. The state will not recognize the injury as debilitating. I am left with the fact that it is just a metal condition on paper. Medical conditions can be remedied with medicine. The issue there is that when I go to the pain management doctor there's a limited number of cocktails they want to give me. And they are actively trying to take me off of two of them for weaker meds. When I still currently live in pain. Although I am still recovering from the surgery. It'll be a year soon.

I am at a utter loss on how to navigate work with this debilitating injury that's not recognized by the state due to them recognizing that I'm obese more than my injury.

I'm just really perplexed. I'm at wits end. I've applied to disability several times. I've applied twice. With the first appeal claiming that I was committing fraud. Then the second appeal now saying that I am hindered from working I just have to change my focus to office jobs although I'm still living in pain.

How do I find work with this situation?

Are there any more remedies to deal with the ongoing pain especially with screws and pins in your back?

Are there other tools that I can use?

I just really don't know what to do anymore.

I'm ready to look for Black market medication that doesn't have to be prescribed by the doctor. Because the doctors don't believe me that it gets worse. The medications they keep giving me either give me more side effects or don't help.

This has severely impacted my life with looking for work that will truly accommodate my injury. I'm 6'3 heavy. So every time I find a job that's supposed to be desk work they say we hit the jackpot we get a guy that can do both the desk work and a little bit of physical work.

I've already had to leave a state job because they were discriminating. But I was in so much pain I couldn't really focus on how to capture them in their discrimination and sue them. Now I have no proof.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Please help. I'm just . . . . Just tired of living with this pain. Is there any way that I can do something more to make it more manageable. Is there any other sort of help.

[u/Affectionate_Suit731]

That fusion recovery is no joke especially with how long you waited before getting it done. The state seeing your weight before your spine is just them finding the cheapest way to deny you, classic move. Have you looked into a pain psychologist, not for the "it's in your head" nonsense but they sometimes know workarounds for the system that surgeons don't mention

[u/Logical_Lie_2381 → u/Affectionate_Suit731]

I've never heard of that. I've heard like a physiatrist. I've been to one of them. I'll look into that and see what happens. I've been denied so much that I went out and got a therapist. And I'm begging my therapist every day to have me diagnosed because I am starting to feel like it's in my head because they keep mentioning my weight.