@katie215, So sorry that you are having such severe pain. But I write to encourage you to do exactly what you are doing by seeking answers in such places as this. You will find many sympathetic people who will share their stories and their experiences and perhaps you will find some answers. I will briefly tell you my story which is very similar to yours. Recently I began a new pain medication called belbuca which I will tell you about. I can sympathize with you as I have had stenosis at L5S1, L3L4 and L4L5 on both sides along with severe disc degeneration bilaterally and with some of the other things you mention. I have suffered for more than 10 years and had been taking 6 Norco a day until fairly recently which barely made a dent in my pain. I started having severe burning/nerve pain down both of my thighs and after a new MRI was told I was having some stenosis on the right side now along with a cyst at S3S4 on the right side. About 15 years ago we discovered a fairly significant scoliosis and therefore surgery would be life altering and I elected against it. I began to think there was nothing left to try until recently.

Recently my pain doctor suggested I try belbuca. I was very skeptical but am glad I gave it a try. It is a small square sticky patch that you place inside your cheek and wait for it to dissolve. It is meant to last 12 hours so you are relieved of taking so many pills. It is an opiate agonist and antagonist and so is one level below Norco on the drug schedule. I was able to go from 6 to 4 Norco per day with even the lowest dose belbuca patch and am now trying to reduce my Norco further with increasing doses of the belbuca patch. The belbuca has completely gotten rid of the burning pain in my thighs which was extremely severe. I still have some sciatica type pain that runs down my left leg and is quite painful. But I am hoping as I increase the belbuca, I will see more benefit still.

I would encourage you to ask your doctor about belbuca. I hope you have a good chronic pain specialist. I am 64 and even 10 years ago decided that getting a rod in my back with a 9 hour surgery was not for me and so I committed years ago to go the nonsurgical route. I have tried injections and a trial with spinal stimulation without results.

While I am a mentor for the Women's Health group, other mentors for this group may read your post and direct you to some other posts and resources they are more familiar with than I am within the Chronic Pain group. But I saw your post and just wanted to encourage you with my recent experience and let you know that I have found Mayo Clinic Connect to be a wonderful resource with a lot of caring people.