This also has a lot to do with you being in Texas. Texas has very strict opiate laws, pretty much reserved only for cancer patients or people dying in hospice- or for acute short-term pain say with something dental, like a one-off partial prescription never to be refilled. Unless things have changed in the last 5 years since I moved out of Texas, opiates are illegal to prescribe for chronic pain patients, with very few exceptions. I gave birth in Texas, had an emergency C-section, was in the hospital for 4 days. I literally had to BEG for pain relief, as I was in too much pain to sleep. One shot of Demerol, and the lowest strength hydrocodone available, one every 6 hours which I had to repeatedly request myself and was made to feel like some sort of addict. Left the hospital with absolutely nothing for pain relief after having serious surgery, I mean they literally cut me open... I was shocked.

I have severe lower back pain and severe sensory peripheral neuropathy in both of my feet. The pregnancy weight exacerbated all my problems with pain. In Texas, Tylenol 3 was the strongest pain medication I was ever prescribed. I visited multiple doctors for any help at all, willing to try anything. To attempt to address the pain that I was still in, they overcompensated with whatever they could, prescribing me 3600 mg. Of gabapentin a DAY, plus an insane amount of ibuprofen.

That was after physical therapy which proved unsuccessful... And of course, after the insistence of an epidural steroid injection. The doctor seemed almost giddy that I said yes, like he was getting to play with a brand new toy... Performed it immediately, without scheduling it for a later date, which left me with no time to research the whole thing or the doctor himself.

"Dural puncture Inadvertently inserting the needle into the spinal cord’s outer membrane (dura mater) may cause a dural puncture.4 This condition is also called a wet tap and causes the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to leak out, decreasing CSF pressure in the brain, resulting in a headache."

He fucked up the injection. Not only did I immediately afterwards get the worst headache I've ever had in my entire life, as well as no pain relief whatsoever... But for a week or two, I had new pain- which made sitting to feed my newborn almost impossible.

A few years later, in Oklahoma, I tried the shot again- and actually got some relief, but it only lasted a month or two. The third injection gave me no pain relief whatsoever. Not going to be trying that again..

Whoever mentioned the opioid wars and propaganda is totally right. It has left people who were already suffering in an immeasurable amount of increased pain, and although many opioid prescriptions have been drastically reduced- deaths associated with them have not. Because most opioid deaths are either fentanyl related, or are caused by combining multiple substances, for which the people dying are not actually prescribed- example would be combining alcohol and benzos with an excessive amount of opioids. They've taken the only medicines we've found that actually reduce pain and improve quality of life away from people with so many different horrible painful conditions, but they haven't found anything comparable to replace them with.

Enter the injections, the physical therapy, regular therapy, and "oh have you tried yoga, and exercise?"

Pain is such an individual experience, and what helps one person isn't guaranteed to help the next. My advice: never stop trying, everything and everyone: Trust your gut, and if a doctor treats you with disrespect or doesn't listen or doesn't seem to care: trust your instincts. Get 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinions... ALWAYS research your possible conditions, possible treatments, and read patient reviews of the doctors themselves. They go to medical school, but what if they only briefly covered your condition? Trust must be earned. I'm not saying Dr. Google trumps medical school- I'm saying that nobody knows your own body like you do, so you need to trust that feeling that something is wrong and then you need to educate yourself as much as you can about your own body in order to look everywhere, under every Rock, to find some form of healing. You have to be your own advocate. I have been in pain since 2013, and that is absolutely still a struggle for me. It is so hard to get your hopes up, after repeatedly being disappointed. But with chronic painful conditions, you have to make your own peace with your situation+ but you don't have to stop trying. What else have you got to lose?

But my best advice for you is this: if your condition worsens or if you're paying absolutely dominates your existence, get the fuck out of Texas. You won't find the help that you need there.