I agree on the drugs! I was supposed to take 900-1800 mg of gabapentin A day. I never took what I was prescribed. I didn’t like the way I felt on 300 mg. I can’t imagine taking that much! Every single drug I take or have taken has had some awful side effect or two attached. I have zero quality of life right now. I just finished my seventh round of antibiotics since January. Everything that happens to me from the tiniest cut to a pierced earlobe (yep, tried to put a pair of earrings in for the first time in six months and gave myself an infected earlobe🤦‍♀️) causes me to need antibiotics. My laundry list of tests and doctors for the next three weeks is pretty daunting too. Two MRIs and one CT. Pretty sure the one MRI is going to say I need to have my rotator cuff fully repaired. The second MRI is for my back. Trying to figure out why I have chronic back pain. Already had the other shoulder done. It was the worst three months of physical therapy I’ve ever gone through. The CT is for an Ascending aortic aneurysm. Pray every year that it hasn’t gotten any bigger. And that’s October for me! I’m really sorry you’re going through all this. Your problems sound very painful and hard to deal with. I have seen people come out of hip replacement so happy they’ve had it done! I truly hope yours is the same. Good luck to you! I hope tomorrow is a better day for you.

I can sure vouch for hip replacement. Made a 100% huge difference and took away my leg pain. My right hip is jealous now but only has moderate arthritis so it can’t be replaced (yet) smile. I only wish that back surgery wasn’t as complex. I’ve managed to stay away from it despite a recent radiologist’s comment on a pelvic x-ray about my “seriously degenerating spine.” Yes, I know that but stretching, physical therapy and chair yoga, (Yoga Vista online-created especially for the over 50 crowd) along with using the Swedish Trionic Veloped all terrain rollator to walk my dog with each day and go on trails with, and not being embarrassed to use a cane lightly for longer in town forays, has kept me out of back surgery. I was given a 33% chance of a spinal fusion making things better with the same percentage chance of it not doing anything or making it worse. So if I do eventually try surgery, I will go to the Barrows Institute in PHX if they can (probably can) give me a better prognosis than the neurosurgeon did in my small town. At least I appreciate his honesty as to what he feels can be done for me. I have spinal stenosis, spondylothesis, severe arthritis and scoliosis in the lumbar region. I was always very physically active all my life until back issues started in earnest in mid 60s. I’m 73 now. The aging process is difficult but I’m still kicking. Well, maybe not kicking anymore but adapting.

I would embrace the hip replacement. My life improved tremendously after mine and the recovery was quite short and easy. Or at least it seemed that way , perhaps due to the two years of pain that led up to it. Absence of pain makes a world of difference.