Okay, for over 15 years I have had recurring pain in my buttocks and the tops of both thighs. The sensation is a bone deep ache in the areas of your buttocks, and upper thighs that are the exact parts of your body you sit on. When the pain is particularly bad, imagine that bone deep ache, now add a sunburn--imagine your entire body weight on that exact part of your body for 8 to 10 hours a day (I type on a computer transcribing dictation for a living, so I am literally on my butt all day and half the night). I ve had x-rays done several times over the years but nothing in the films explains my pain. It is NOT constant. Some days, it only hurts a little for a few hours, other days, I am pain free for 4-5 hours, then the pain begins. The worst is when I sit down first thing in the morning and I m already in pain and it doesn t go away all day. I was originally prescribed Ultram (2 pills 4 times a day--240 pills), but that prescription has been cut back and cut back and cut back to the point where I am prescribed 100 pills (tramadol) per month. Sometimes the medication really helps. Other times, it does nothing to ease the pain. Maybe I should add that on top of this chronic pain, I developed RA in 2003. A month ago I began experiencing left hip pain diagnosed as sciatica in my left hip with radiculopathy that began just down to my thigh, then my calf, and finally down into my left foot. I was given an ESI of cortisone and Medrol, which helped for a few days, but the hip pain and radiculopathy in my left foot comes and goes, while that pain in my buttocks/thighs continues. I d hoped the ESI might help the buttocks pain, but it had no effect. I m sick of living with this pain. My job requires that I sit for many hours every day and sometimes I m working and crying simultaneously because my butt/thighs hurt so bad (fortunately, I work from home so there s nobody to see me since I m all alone). I can t understand why nothing shows up in x-rays. Should I seek out an orthopedist and ask for an MRI? What if, like the x-rays, nothing that explains my pain shows up? I m not faking this. I m not a drug seeker. Do you have any ideas?