I broke mine while in the Navy. I damn near paralyzed my left leg in a freak accident during a PT run. Thought I cleared a pot hole when I didn't, twisted when I landed in it, and that was that. I heard it snap like a bundle of twigs being twisted apart INSIDE my head. Literally shattered the L5 vertebrae and completely blew out the L5-S1 disc. It was leaking out onto the sciatic nerve and into the spinal column. The vertebrae was in 3 larger pieces with tons of bone shards surrounding it and cutting into the sciatic nerve. One of the worst days of my life, as I knew something was wrong and my naval career was probably over.

Anyhoo

Your best bet is to deny those pain killers when they're offered, but only AFTER you've left the hospital. I'm sorry to tell you, but it's a highly invasive surgery, and you're gonna need at least morphine and loritab (hydrocodone) for the pain. Neither is nearly as addictive as Percocet (oxycodone). Make sure you have someone that will bring you stool softeners, or ask the Dr/nursing staff to give you some whith your pain meds. Opium has a tendency to constipate people.

Once you've been released from the hospital, go find a place that sells kratom. I've been dealing with heavy amounts of chronic pain for about 10 yrs now, to the point it nearly drove me nuts and forced me to quit working, until I found kratom. It helps better than any other natural pain remedy Ive tried. It is slightly habit forming, and does have a slight opiate effect if taken in high doses, but it works. I know a lot of people with back/neck/spine issues that take it also and we all agree. It changed out lives for the better. I still don't work due to nerve damage in my lower back and neck, as well as PTSD from my Naval service, but that's all a different story for a different time.

Hopefully, you won't need a full reconstruction of the vertebrae. I did and it sucked. They scraped both hips down to the marrow, and then mixed that with some ground up coral to make a kind of plaster. They put a piece of lab grown bone in place of that disc, used the plaster to shore it up and put the vertebrae back together, and then drilled screws into L4 and S1 and attached pins to them, so it made a kind of cage. The surgery took about 10 1/2 hrs and left me in some of the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. That's why I say you'll want/need those opiates while you're in the hospital.

The coral helps to generate bone growth and adhesion. BUT, if you heal relatively fast, like I do, it will cause bone overgrowth and possibly calcification of the scar tissue, like it did me. I now have a giant solid mass of overgrown bone and calcified scar tissue that hardened around the left-side sciatic nerve. Most of the damage was on the left side, and it caused more growth than it should've. But, I'm still walking, so I can't complain, really. The constant and chronic pain sucks. Get used to it and "Embrace The Suck" because it probably won't go away.

Good luck, fren. I hope it works out well for you.

If it's any help I lost my L2 when my spine was compacted after a helicopter crash in the Army. The best pain killer is mental my friend, but it's a bit of a long road to get there. I went down the opioid route and after a while it was useless so they carried on doubling the dose, try and take as little as possible. I broke my ankle on both sides recently, they almost killed me with Ketamine as nothing would dull the pain on relocating the dislocated ankle.

It's a hard choice between opiates and alcohol but for people in real pain, that decision must be made, addiction tendencies have not much to do with it.