What can I do?

[casolorz]

I've had what my doctor says its Meralgia Paresthetica for about 5 years now.
I am pretty sure he is right about what I have, all the symptoms and causes seem to match.
My pain seems to get worse at night, sometimes it starts pretty early, its worst when I wear jeans, some days my life is almost normal and some days I feel like sticking a knife in my leg to see if the pain stops.
I am sure I got this pain from gaining weight, it started as a feeling of pressure on my hip/upper leg and quickly became a sharp pain.
I have tried almost everything, I haven't lost all the weight but have in the past gone way below the weight where the pain started and that didn't seem to help. I have done physical therapy, a doctor had me take ibuprofen twice a day so strong and long that I developed an allergy against it, I've had injections, some sort of ultrasound therapy, taken anti depressants (cymbalta for the past few months up to 120mg a day). I've had xrays, mris, ct scans....
The Cymbalta seemed to help for a while but at the moment it does not seem to be helping much, I've had a lot of pain the past few nights. The doctors always ask me if it affects my sleep and the truth is it doesn't while I am sleeping but it does take me a while to find a position I am comfortable on, specially since the pain is at its worst at night.

So why am I posting this? I don't know, maybe I am looking for ideas, suggestions, sympathy, last hope! you tell me, I am guessing I am not the only one that has been at this point before.

Any comments are welcome, suggestions, anything really at this point.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.

--Carlos

[akarinapm]

Hi Carlos,
I am sorry to hear that you are still suffering. I too have MP and suffer the most intense pain when I lay down to sleep. Recently it has been so bad during the night that I wake up literally wanting to scream. After about a minute the pain subsides and I am able to go back to sleep.

I am surprised that you have tried all of those methods and found no solution. With all the scans were they able to find the point where the nerve is being pinched or what it is that is causing the entrapment?

I do not like to take medications and try to find alternate means if I can. One thing I intend on trying if this persists will be acupuncture. Have you or anyone else given this a try?

Keep your head up, the good news is that there is a good chance that this will spontaneously disappear one day. Hopefully it will be soon!


-Karina

[casolorz]

Karina, thanks for the reply. Sounds like your pain is worse than mine. How long have you had it?
I didn't get to try acupuncture for my pain but I got really close. While I was visiting back home one xmas (3 or so years ago) my mom took me to a place she went to which did all sorts of alternative medicine. I gotta say I am a science guy so I went in with no hope or believe. I told the lady about my pain of which she said nothing, my mom also told her I had weight problems and sleep problems, so the lady chose to focus on that. I saw no difference so I quit going, I was coming back home either way so it made no difference.

I really don't like taking Cymbalta because its an anti depressant and those drugs are usually pretty dangerous. Actually I got to experience one of their dangers one time when I ran out of my prescription Friday, then Walgreens didn't get it ready Saturday and they closed Sunday and Monday. That Tuesday was one of the worst days of my life and it had nothing to do with the pain, just with the lack of the drug in my system. That was actually pretty recently and I have been waiting to meet with the Neurologist to see if he will take me off it and try something else, I never want to go through that again.

Anyways, good luck with what you try, let us know if it helps.

--Carlos

[Lfaye]

Hi,

I have had MP for 5 years. It started on my left side and 18 months later, it started on my right side. I have heard that bilateral MP is unusual.
A few years ago, I tried accupuncture and I believe it made my pain worse. Also, I don't think the accupuncturist was very experienced. (she was quite young) Most MD's have not heard of MP and most physical therapists, accupuncturists and other traditional and alternative practitioners have not heard of it. So, I am sure this accupuncturist had no experience with MP.
The needles were placed along the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve (the nerve responsible for our MP symptoms) and some of the inserts had me flying off the table in pain. After I left her office, my MP pain was much worse for weeks.
I suggest, if you want to try accupuncture, find a very old, asian expert who has seen everything.
My best suggestions for helping all of us with this:
Try not to cross your legs or sit in folded up positions. It may place some strain on the nerve
Shed excess weight
Don't wear tight clothing especially around the waist
Try sleeping with a soft pillow between your thighs/knees
Wear shoes with good cushioning like running shoes
Change positions frequently, even a little movement so as to not freeze into a position
I take 100 mgs of neurontin at night. This is a VERY low dose, but I am a very small person - (92 lbs)

The best to all of you,
Lfaye

[casolorz]

I was using Lidoderm patches until recently and they seemed to help a bit, not perfect but helped.
About 7 weeks ago my wife and I started exercising a bit, we joined a boot camp program, and that almost cured my pain. I don't know if it was the extra muscle, the stretching, the physical activity, I just don't know. We took one week off last week (between program end and start) and the pain came back within a few days!

Hope that helps :-)

[firethightheater]

i think my severe attack of mp was caused by a high martial arts hamstring stretch i was doing...i felt it in my groin inguinal ligament area but it really struck the next morning...something...the nerve is entrapped....worst pain of my life for first two weeks...burning numbness etc...now that it has started to decline i find that if I massage my left anterior thigh in an upward direction it gives me some mildly painful but ultimately therapeutic relief ...however if I massage downward...it sends burning electrical pain down my thigh to the bottom of my quadricep at the knee...in other words I can induce the burn....to me this means this nerve is trapped and reacts violently when stroked downward as if being further stretched but in the opposite direction some of the tautness is released....yet my physiatrist and pain doc are aiming at medial branch nerve radio frequency ablation....I will argue my case next time I see them...though maybe we will have to attack the facet joint area...it's conceding defeat and will result in left thigh numbness in perpetuity but if it gets the pain....I don't care