Sounds like crap management. You can get ride of the pain killers now as any acute injury would be long gone! Of course coming off them causes a reflexive increase in pain so you need a good back physio to work with you at the same time.

Not sure what your doctor's problem was but it seems a tad unethical. Basically you need to be in pain to get a proactive approach to the actual problem. The epidural should have help if it was placed in the correct place, even for a few days.

That said a mechanical cause to the pain might mean the epidural was less effective and warrants more of a specific spinal exercise approach to the issue. Suggest looking around for someone in your local area who promotes that they run a back exercise program. Perhaps your local NHS physio dept has one.