Eight or nine years ago I had this ache in my left buttock which was not particularly bad but a bit bothersome and sometimes when I was walking it caused me a bit of pain. I had osteopathy, I had acupuncture and finally I had a bit of physiotherapy but I still had the pain so the doctor sent me for an MRI to see what was causing it. Somewhere in the lower part of my spine they found a narrowing which was pinching on a nerve. I was given amitriptyline which I took every evening and lo! the pain disappeared.

I took amitriptyline for the next five or six years but, when I found out that one of its side-effects is tinnitus, I gave it up. That was about eighteen months ago when I had had pneumonia and hadn’t taken the tablets for a while.

Last week the pain in my buttock came back but this time it was not just bothersome, it was/is excruciating. It starts just to the left of my spine, goes through my left ‘cheek’, across to my hip and down the outside of my leg and turns right at the shin, goes across to the inside of my leg and, sometimes, feels like it’s shooting sparks out through the muscle there but otherwise just shoots a very achy pain across. I spent several days doing exercises from the internet along with using a nifty little doohickey called “Paingone” which shoots little electric sparks into various points along the sciatic nerve. Although the pain went occasionally, it always came back with a vengeance so I made myself get up early and rang the doctor (if you want an appointment you MUST start ringing at eight in the morning.) 

I saw the doc, got a new prescription for amitriptyline and for two days in a row there was very little pain – but the nights were something else. 

It is now twenty-five past six on the morning following the second day. I went to bed about midnight, having had a nap earlier to try to catch up with some sleep. I may have slept for half an hour or so but I have been awake the rest of the night and the pain is getting worse. About half an hour ago I took two paracetamol and came downstairs for a coffee, thinking maybe if I moved about the pain would lessen – it hasn’t🙁. 

Someone described it as “toothache in your leg”; it’s that and so much more!😩 May you never have sciatica!

(Sorry for being self-indulgent in publishing this. I thought it might help me although it hasn’t yet. I’ll get back to my mother as soon as I can concentrate😣.)