UPDATE

I have been to see the Orthopaedic consultant and he was saying to me, that in cases like mine where the inflammation keeps on reoccuring and getting worse each time, then it is more than likely that this will keep on happening and just getting worse. He believes there is little point in having another injection and reckons that having surgery is the only option left to me.

I am now able to get up and walk some and have been managing to get outside for the past 3 days. My leg feels very odd, like I have to focus all my attention on being able to move my leg. It took me 20 minutes to walk what would normally take just a few minutes. But boy, it's great to be mobile again!!! I had some more acupuncture on Thursday and it has def helped and it has even taken away the pain I was getting in my shoulder. The pain is now under control with the Fentanyl patches, codeine and Ibuprofen gel and various other stuff for all the side effects!!

The surgeon said he unfortunately couldn't operate in the next few weeks as he is on leave but I'm assuming that as soon as he gets back he will want to operate ASAP. He will be doing a keyhole discectomy and I will only be in hospital overnight. He said as long as there were no complications (which he doesn't forsee) it should take 4-6 weeks for me to recover and be able to drive again and there is a 90% success rate. I asked when he could see me climbing again and he said that as soon as the 6weeks were up, I should go for it as soon as I felt fit and well enough. Seems all positive.

I also enquired about the denting to the vertebrae and it would seem that my GP has been misinforming me yet again!! He said there was no denting whatsoever and that the 'acute endplate changes' referred to the fact that the inflammation from the disc was making my vertebrae inflammed also. So this clears up the confusion I was feeling over that because I was rather baffled as to how and when I could have fractured my vertebrae. Mentioned above that I had fallen onto my backside a few weeks before my troubles started but it wasn't a bad fall and there was no pain/bruising/swelling at the time. So that's that bit cleared up anyway!

Thankyou for listening and for all the advice over the past few months. Hopefully once I've had the surgery I can move on from all this and get my life back on track