Chronic pain, second opinions, and drugs

You know, I never really gave chronic pain much thought before. I suppose that until you have it, no one really does think about it much.

These days I think of chronic pain all off the time, because I'm suffering from it. I feel ok in the morning, and so I go about my day. I often over do it, like I did today. So I end up with nerve impingement. Pins and needles all up and down my right leg. It feels like water being poured down my leg, warmth or burning on the outside of my right foot. Crampong in my calf.  And worst of all, a feeling of weakness in my foot.  

And so I spend hours and hours reading about the condition I have. Success stories from surgeries. Reasons not to get the surgery, reasons to get it. Around and around I go in the merry-go-round of spondy information. I feel like I'm spinning from it all, and still I don't know what to do. 

I'm tryng to get a second opinion, from an orthopaedic surgeon who specializes in the spine. But since he's a second opinion, I have his hoops to jump through tio see him. (Including getting a referral from my primary care doctor.)

I also need to get in to see a pain doctor, which I'm scared of, but I don't have to take opioids, I'm just hoping three are other options for me.

And now I need to go make dinner so I can go to bed early in hopes of stopping the nerve pain today.