UPDATE

Well it's nearly 3.30am and I am unable to sleep as I am in alot of pain, worse than ever before. I don't know what has happened. Last Monday I had some acupuncture and was a little sore the day after but for days after that the little flickers of discomfort I was getting were pretty much gone and the pain in my buttock that I had in the mornings was all gone. Then one evening I had a bit of a stabbing pain in my back which lasted only briefly and I didn't think much of it. At noon today I had an appointment with the Chiropracter for a massage and manipulation. Left feeling good and got a lift home from my friend as I am still without a car. 10minutes from home and my back and leg started to hurt. When I got home I had to limp to the house and lay down to stretch out. Within an hour I was in agony and I couldn't stand up. Forced myself up as I needed to go upstairs to use the toilet but I couldn't walk upstairs and had to crawl up. Then my daughter had to pull up my trousers as I was unable to. Managed to get downstairs again and lay back down. I phoned my GP and he was able to fax a prescription to the local chemist in the village where I live and he kindly came to my house with some Tramadol. Lying on my front the pain is bearable but as soon as I move into any other position the pain is bad. Later I had to use the bathroom again, and again I had to crawl upstairs and needed help. Luckily my ex boyfriend had come to take my daughter for the evening and was able to help me. I got stuck at the bottom of the stairs and could not move for the pain. Everytime I tried to take a step the pain would stab in my back and down my leg, just as before but much much worse. The pain was so bad I was crying in agony and hyperventilating. He had to carry me through to the living room and I had to grit my teeth and force myself through the pain to be able to lie back down. He has gathered things for me so that I can lie here for the next 24 hours and not have to go back upstairs for anything as I cannot walk. Even crawling now is very painful. The tramadol is helping a little as long as I stay lying on my front and every so often I am crawling to the kitchen to get ice to put on my back which is soothing it somewhat.

I phoned the chiropracter and told him what had happened and he thinks that the manipulations have perhaps caused things to get a bit inflammed (or very inflammed IMO as I cannot walk!) He is hoping things will settle back down again but if not, he is going to come to my house tommorrow to see if he can help me. I just don't understand how this can have happened as I was feeling so good since the steroid injection. He doesn't think that the injection has worn off, as he thinks the pain would have come back more slowly and not hit so suddenly the way that it did. I don't think this is just a small flare up that will die down as the pain is worse than it has ever been before, hopefully I am wrong.

I'm tired of all this as I was doing so well. My flexibility was improving also and I was starting to be able to sit down and was even able to stretch out my hamstrings from a sitting and standing position.

Surely if I was still healing but just having a flare up the pain wouldn't be so sore. It has been 14 hours since the pain came back and it hasn't lessened any. Ocassionaly I can manage to roll over slowly onto my back and flex my bad leg at the hip and knee and pull it towards my chest and this gives a very slight relief, opening up my spine more?

One thing I wondered about that the Wikipedia reference-linkMRI showed up, was that the endplate of the L5 vertebrae was dented? How could a prolapsed disc cause denting to the vertebrae? I know endplate material is softer, but is it so soft that disc material could dent it? Is a dented vertebrae the same thing as a compression fracture or is it a different thing? These were all questions that I forgot to ask the Ortho when I saw him.