I've just read some posts on back pain and greatful as it is timely for us.
My husband was in a bad auto accident in June. He was stopped in traffic and got rearended by a large construction truck who was going 65-70 mph when it hit. Broke his seat and threw him backwards, and across oncoming traffic. Luckily as he was pushed across there were no cars coming the other direction thank God. He was also in a cadillac and the back end took the brunt of force. Also, he is fortunate that the gas tank did not rupture as he came to rest on dry grass on a small knoll off the road.
Anyway, he has been having terrible back pain and increasing shooting pains down his legs. Especially sitting (in a car, or on a couch) He can't stand too long and sitting irritates him.
He tried to go back to work several times after some time off, but that put him in extreme pain (he's a heavy duty auto tech/engines/transmissions). So now he's been off for almost nine weeks.
We had an MRI done both privately and at Kaiser with two different results. One said he had buldging discs at L4-5 and L-3-4, and an annular tear at at the same site. Kaiser on the other hand just sent a one line letter. He never got to see the MRI results from Kaiser and just got a letter from a doctor saying it was normal. However, the private MRI done with a new state of the art MRI machine had just the opposite in its report. These MRI's were one day apart.
He's definately got severe pain. We know something is wrong. But we are confused by the Kaiser report. They never even called him in to go over the results with their films. With the other we had the films right away and the report the next morning promptly.
Kaiser has done nothing more than push narcotic pain pills his way. I threw most of them away and kept a few for real bad days. I felt they would just mask symptoms, and make him a drug addict (valium, percocet). At first he'd take one and be on the floor for a day and a half. Pain would return.
We are really frustrated and even though this doesn't involve horses (well kinda, he misses riding/even just walking a horse) when I saw the other posts regarding back pain I thought it was worth a try to get some more information or shared experiences.
Has anyone else had this sort of treatment from Kaiser? We are upset cause we pay lots of $$ in premiums for poor treatment. Looks like we are forced to find our own doctors that may help him. Don't quite what to do next. And we need to know if he can work or not and what is safe for him to do.
Any sort of information, advice, shared experiences would be most helpful!
Thanks guys! Now, back to horses!
ps..please feel free to email private so not to clog RC...
