Okay so if you take me through after the operation how you felt and why they send you to the pain clinic?
Yes, well after the operation, although I did, my pain was less than it was before the operation I was still having a tremendous lot of pain. And although I was putting up with it, my GP was just trying to help and she said, “Why don’t you try the pain clinic, just to give you …” Because pain is exhausting. I didn’t realise how exhausting pain could be. I realise how my husband would have suffered all those years really. So, she said you can’t lose by it, you know, and they may give you a nerve ending block. So I agreed. So she was just thinking of something to relief the pain other than tablets because she knows that I just can’t cope with them.
Yes. So you went to the pain clinic?
Yes.
And what happened?
Well then, you know, we had a chat and he went through all the tablets that he could give me. But he realised that, you know, and they tend to give, I mean people with a lot of pain tend to get, tend to get depressed. Well I knew I wasn’t depressed and I didn’t want any of those drugs that, because they have all got such side effects and I know that I just can’t cope with them. So, so then he went on to and I said, oh and he said, “What did you expect when you came here?” And I said, “Well my GP thought that I may be able to have a nerve block to relieve me some pain.” So he said, he said, he would be, quite happy to do it for me, he said, “And some patients it lasts for six months, some patients it only lasts a fortnight,” the pain relief. And he said, he wouldn’t like to be doing it on me every fortnight and then he started telling me what he put in it. And when he said steroids, I sort of said, “Huh steroids?” He said, “Yes and you can’t have them.” I said, “No.” So he said, “That’s ruled that out. So that was the tablets ruled out. That’s that ruled out.” He was ticking the boxes and then acupuncture. So I said, “Yes, whatever you say.” So that was when I tried it.
And …
And, and it just didn’t work for me. It did say in the leaflet. They always give you leaflets which are brilliant. Which surprised me, that I didn’t really know that there was side effects with acupuncture. But, as the nurse said, “There’s side effects with everything.” And I suppose now they have got to tell you everything, what with people taking them to court and everything.
So I went weekly for five weeks. But it didn’t do any good at all. In fact it seemed to aggravate it. So I came to end that. And she saw me again, and she did offer me, she did offer me another course of pain management. It was two weeks, two days a week for six weeks, two hours, so that’s like four hours a week. Going, travelling to the hospital, and parking, and all the things she was tell me that they were doing, and really I didn’t it was, you know, I said, “No.” I said, “Can I think about it?” And she said, “Certainly.” And gave me a number and I wanted to she’d give me an open appointment for six months. So I could go back to her if necessary.
