Hi all,

I am so thankful to have found this chat,

For the past month and a bit I have been experiencing pain/aches in my right leg. It all started when I felt down my right shin at night and I suddenly felt a really tender part on my shin bone. I thought this was coming from my old 3 year scar on my shin from when I hit it really hard but it seemed like it was just a little lower than this..  I put it down to a random occurance and went to work the next day. I'm on my feet as a waitress all day, through out the day I started experiencing a dull ache in my right lower leg around my shin.. it got worse through out the day to the point I was sent home to rest. I told my partner that night and I said I would have expected a bruise to be there but no bruise showed and I couldn't recall doing anything to hurt or injur my body at all. 

The tender part of my shin seems to come and go which is strange.. when I touch it sometimes it feels normal and now it seems to have changed to a dull ache in that area and around the back of my calf and sometimes my ankle. 

I am very healthy apart from smoking but I have been trying to quit and now I am set on stopping. I'm 26 nearly 27 years old female and I love long walks every day. 

Skip a week and I saw a doctor who sent me for urgent bloods as I although had thought I'd lost a bit of weight recently which seemed strange as I had been quite inactive compared to normal. Blooda came back fine and then I had an xray which also came back fine. The pain has gotten worse, from what started as just shin bone pain, then progressed into a dull ache in the back of my calf, the back of my knee and up my thigh. The pain definitely travels upwards ! And it feels like a tight pulling sensation in my leg when it aches or spasms.

The pain is significantly worse from 5pm onwards. I'm a heavy sleeper so I don't wake in the night thankfully but my leg starts to spasm along what feels like nerves up the back of my leg and I get a burning pain along the inside of my thigh sometimes too.. during the day its mostly a subtle ache in my shin and calf which I have not got used to but ita worse after any driving which I have now stopped all together as its my acceleration leg. 

The doctor has put it down as sciatica on my sick note as I canr get to work and feel weak on my leg after standing for ages. I'm not convinced at all that it's sciatica and he's put me on gabapentin for a week to see if it helps but I feel really spaced out on them and I hate the feeling but unfortunately the aches and spasms are still there but seem a little less but never the less, it hasn't cured it at all. 

From ready the forum, I can see so many people experiencing similar feelings and it seems like xrays don't show up tumors etc very often. I would love an MRI but I fear the doctor may not think this is needed if he presumes sciatica? And I worry that the waiting lists will be very long for an MRI on the NHS but id rather be on one than not. Even an MRI may not show up anything from what I'm reading. 

My lymph nodes don't seem raised but I have had some pain radiate to my groin some nights. I don't seem to have any noticible swelling but I have had a couple of small bruoses on my left leg that don't seem to be going away not sure of thats totally unrelated. I haven't had any lower back pain either which the doctor had a quick examine. 

I'm really anxious as I'm not working now and I really miss being active, I know that no one is able to diagnose anything on here but I really felt called to post and share my experience and see if anyone else could relate. Sorry for the ramblings !

Many thanks xx Georgia