Jessie,It is so upsetting to me to hear about your condition, cause it reminds me so much of my own situation 5 years ago.
And I'm so sorry you're going through this right now.
I have, or actually had, neck/shoulder pains for 5 years. Kept coming back to me. Once I collapsed in the staircase at work screaming in pain.
I took turodol, flexeril, hydrocordone in big quantities to deal with this pain. Had an MRI done. A bulging disc was identified. Considered operation (but didn't thank God.) Learned something called the Alexander technique to teach myself to relax in the neck and keep proper posture. Went to doctors office 4 or 5 times to get a turodol shot in my butt. But it kept coming back.
Then I saw an interview with John Sarno on Larry King live back in August 2000 time frame (I think). And he was also on 20/20 at some point.
Anyway, Sarno has been healing backpain for some 20 years now using a sort of radically different treatment program, or method if you will.
Most people however can't be helped by his method. Not because they don't suffer from the particular type of pain his healing method treats.
No, most people can't be helped because they are not susceptible to the principle behind his treatment method...
which is that your pain is created by your brain and you simply think the pain away.
NO KIDDING.
It is not unlikely that you suffer from what Sarno denotes as TMS (Tension myositis syndrome.) A condition where your brain (your subconscious more specifically) can starve nerves in the spinal cord region from oxygen. This causes pain similar to pinched nerves, sciatica, herniated discs, etc.
And why does your subconscious do this crap?
Because, says Sarno, your subconscious would rather deal with physical pain than emotional pain.
In other words, if you suffer from TMS, it's because you have some sort of significant emotional pain in your life. This kind of emotional pain can range from work related stress, to family problems, and to dealing with a troublesome illness such as Lyme.
So do you suffer from TMS?
I asked myself the same problem 5 years ago. I didn't know. But after reading Sarno's book and totally believing what he had to say, since it made so much sense in my life with all the pressure and stresses I had, I decided to use his method to literally think the neck/shoulder pain away.
It works like a charm for me.
Will it work for you? I can't tell.
But what I do know is that you have nothing to loose by looking into what Sarno has to say.
And if you have an open mind and can absorp some radical thinking AND if you indeed to have TMS, then you are IN LUCK!
Cause you can think your pain away all by your self.
You can say bye bye to all those pills and heating pads and so on....if, but only if, you actually do suffer from TMS AND have an open mind.
And only you can find out.
I believe that you can actually make an appointment to see Sarno. He's down in NY City.
Good luck.
Btw, also see the thread about sciatica:
http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/031114.html
I have several posts in there about Sarno, including links to his book and some reviews of his work.
Michael