I just came home from being in the hospital for 8 days. i feel much better now on a scale of 1 to 10 my pain level is about a 4 which is tolerable for me i am hardly ever completely pain free anymore. i can't remember the last time i was completely pain free but 4 or less i can deal with 8 or more for more than 24 hours straight and i need to go to the hospital especially since i take 160mgs of OxyContin twice a day plus 60mgs of OxyCodone for breakthrough pain as needed. When all of this fails to relieve my pain and soaking in water Hot as i can stand it doesn't help it's time to go to the hospital. i really don't want to go to the hospital because they always want to give me blood which i really don't want because of the iron-overload and i have to argue with yhe doctors because after 3 days with little or no change thats all the doc's think will work is blood.Thankfully this time i had a doc that i had before who was on the same page as me. i tried to get him to be my primary care doc but he doesn't have his own clinic but he did refer me to a friend of his who the nurses spoke highly of so i am going to call him in the moning. i signed in to our site and saw all the replies to my introduction and felt very moved. i also see that i have some "FRIENDS" I'll be in contact with my new "FRIENDS" privately real soon. i can't take sitting up for too long yet.Thank you all for making me feel so welcomed every time i come on this site i'm amazed at what i see. i'm mad that i didn't find this site sooner.thats it for now i'll be in touch again real soon Reese