Back Pain Forum - My Back Pain Story, Please Give Me Advice

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What structures make up the spine? We review basic spine anatomy here...before identifying potential causes of back pain....

Q: My Back Pain Story, Please Give Me Advice

asked by: TieDie71 on April 30th, 2005

New User

Hi everyone! I'd like to share my back pain story with you all and get your opinions. It all started about 6 years ago.
I would go to bed feeling fine and wake up in the morning with my back completely shot. I'd be on the couch for 2 days, rolling off very slowly and walking half bent over and to the right, I wouldn't be able able to do anything but go to the bathroom. Then on the 3rd day, I would wake up fine. Well, in april of 2004, on easter morning I was getting off the toilet, and all of a sudden had shocking pains shooting from my lower back through my whole body. It sent me to the floor and made me cry. It took me about 10 minutes to finally get up, and at least a couple hours to feel right again. After that day, I had a nagging, horrible, pain in my lower back that killed when I coughed, sneezed, hit a bump in the truck, when I sat down, got up, moved wrong.....Anything! I just tolerated it for months. In september I finally went to my doctor, he sent me for x-rays and physical therapy, he gave me muscle relaxers and anti-inflamatory's, and the night before pt started, I had a horrible night at work, everything I did was painfull, every move I made sent little lighting bolts of pain through my body. When I got home and went to bed I couldnt get comfortable for anything. I spent hours tossing and turning and trying to get to sleep, finally I got up took a muscle relaxer. I got back in bed and holy cow I all of a sudden had the worst pain i've felt in my life, tons of shooting lightning bolt pain all through my body, I was afarid to breath. My right leg started going numb, and started aching. I layed there for about an hour not daring to move, and thinking that it would go away and everything would be fine. Well, it didn't go away, it just got worse. I yelled for my husband, and he took me to the hospital. They gave me a shot for pain and said I had a sciatic nerve attack, and told me to go to my therapy that morning.
Well, I went to pt for six weeks, and had heat therapy and ultrasound. My leg continued to stay numb, and my back was worse than ever. In the fourth week of pt they started putting me in tracktion, it felt good but did nothing for my back pain or numbness. So I went back to the doctor and he sent me for an mri, after about 4 weeks I finally heard back from them, and they said they were sending me to a neuro surgeon because I had a ruptured disk and nerve root compression. I went to the neurosurgeon the week before christmas, and he told me that I had a very large herniation of l5, that was literally hanging down to l4, and my nerve was piched off from this.I also had degenerative disk disease. He wanted to do a right hemi-laminectomy on the 21st of dec., said we have to get it done quick to save the nerve. I was taken out of work, and had terrible back pain and a numb leg.
Ok, so, I had the surgery, and I was feeling pretty good for about a week, then all the pain came back, and my leg started aching daily, he put me back on vicodin, and that only worked for a couple weeks. Now my right hip is killing me all the time. It has a terrible, deep, stabbing pain, especially when I walk. About 3 weeks ago I started getting a burning sensation in my leg and my back.I get it about every 2 days. Now i'm on nortriptyline, which worked for about 2 weeks. I am back to walking half bent over and to the right. Now i'm getting a new sensation....Are ya ready for this? It feels like I have bugs crawling all over my leg! My leg aches everyday of my life, along with my hip and my back. I'm sceduled for a steroid injection on may 11. I'm still out of work, and I feel like my doctor is missing something. Last week I walked 4 blocks with my kids, and my leg throbbed so bad, before we even got where we were going. I am worse off now than I was before the surgery.I cant sit for more than 15 minutes before I have to get up and I cant stand for more than 15 minutes before I have to sit down. If I vacuum my livingroom and diningroom, I am down for the rest of the day. I cant carry groceries, walk on hard floors for more than 10 minutes, rake the yard, or even carry laundry or i'm down the rest of the day! I cannot do anything, it seems like. I feel like I should get another doctor, but everyone says I "already have the best neurosurgeon around". I have to get back on my feet again, i'm only 34, I have 2 very active kids (13 & 9) that need me to do things with them, I want to go back to work, but I cant even keep my house clean like I used to. I'm so depressed over all of this, :( I just dont know what to do anymore.
He says if the injection dont work, he's doing surgery again. I had another mri and he cant see past the scar tissue to see if there is another herniation. What if the second surgery leaves me worse off yet again, like the first one did? Do any of you have any input on my situation? Please tell me anything you know!
Thank you, sherri

Replies(11)

NeuromuscularTherapist

replied on May 3rd, 2005

New User

Tiedie71,

sherri,

it sure sounds like you have been through a lot. I always hate see how people have to get wrapped up in the medical spiral. Surgery, drugs, surgery, etc..

It may sound strange, but the first thing I start with when working with these types of situations is nutrition. What you put in your mouth is what you are making new tissue out of. Poor nutrition, food intolerances, allergies, etc. Can flare up your nervous system and make it very difficult to begin any type of movement program. I can guarantee you that your spinal stabilizer muscles are inhibited (shut off) due to constant pain. When this happens, they have extremely poor endurance and can't perform their function which is essentially stabilizing the spine. I don't care how much fixing is done on your disc, if you don't have any type of support structure for your spine (functioning muscles) then you will have a helluva time getting out of pain.

This answer can be extremely long, so I will make it short. To get your body back on track you need to be working with someone who looks at your body as a whole. In my practice, I always start with nutrition since most people are utterly horrible in this department. As soon as I can get them to start having normal bowel movements and get their inflammation down, then we can start working on massage therapy to calm down the body and increase circulation in the working tissues. Then comes proper movement training and specific instructions on how to move around so that you don't aggravate your problem. After we start to see improvements, then I can start having clients perform some movements to start re-activating the spinal stabilizers and the abdominal wall. From there, its just progression and working on improving nutrition and ability to move without putting more stress on the spine.

Sam visnic nmt

sandyallen

replied on May 5th, 2005

Extremely eHealthy

Tiedie71

Hi there! Please, please get a second, third opinion and whatever it takes.
I am no Dr. But I suffer with chronic pain 24/7, I have rsd, peripheral neuropathy, fibromyalgia, cfs, mps, ddd, messed up knee, sciatica nerve problems, I gave up on surgeries, especially since I was diagnosed with rsd, it appears that one surgery leads to another and surgery is not recommended with rsd. I am not saying not to have surgery as that is your choice. I plan to have a pain pump trial next month, I hope it will help some as I would like part of my life back and I do realize that I must live with some pain my thing is is that I need to keep functioning. Again, please get some more opinions.
Sincerely,
sandy

TieDie71

replied on May 5th, 2005

New User

Thank you for all the replies. For the past couple nights I have been having alot of problems sleeping, i've been having mini sciatic nerve attacks. Now today my hip is not hurting as bad as it has been, but I feel like I have another ruptured disk! :x I was taking neurontin for about 2 weeks, it was not helping, only making me high. I would get so high I couldn't drive. Needless to say, I told him I could not take them anymore. I am waiting for a call back from my insurance company to get a second opinion. Do you think I should see another neurosurgeon, or an orthapedic surgeon? My doctor probably dont want me to see an orthapedic because they will reccomend a fusion, and he doesn't belive in fusions. Next week on the 11th I get my first injection, we'll see how that goes. What if I do have another herniation, will the injection help that too?
I'm really hoping the injection works, and is not too painfull!

Tamadrummer

replied on May 5th, 2005

Active User, very eHealthy

First off getting high from nurontin is amazing. I have never heard of that as a side effect. I was taking 1800mg a day and never got a feeling tiredness or "highness"

second, if you get put to sleep for the injection, you wont know you even have had anything done to you.

The injections help many people but they didnt work for me. I havent had any injections since I had disc replacement on dec 17th but maybe if they did do some it may help me.

TieDie71

replied on May 12th, 2005

New User

I'll Never Do It Again

:cry: I had my injection yesterday, and i'll never do it again. I could deal with the novacain, but when she was putting the thing into the epidural sac, it must have hit something. My body jerked, I started bawling like a baby, I was having like a sciatic nerve attack except it was'nt sending pain through my whole body, it stayed deep in my spine,straight down, shot to the right, through my hip and down my right leg above my knee. My heart rate went sky high, my blood pressure went through the roof. Never, never again. I did'nt feel the medicine at all. I dont feel any better today, everything is the same. I am willing to live with my back problems now. I'm done. I'm glad the injections work for some people, but they are not for me!

boss21

replied on May 12th, 2005

New User

I think the nmt had some valid points. It is quite possible the spinal stabilizing muscles are probably extremely weak and possibly inhibited by the pain. While it may take some time to relieve the pain, if it is mechanical pain, then it is unlikely to subside on its own.

My recommendation is to attempt performing what ever spinal segmental stabilization exercises (core exercises) that can be performed in the pain free range. You need to find a practitioner or an exercise physiologist such as myself to help you "retrain" the deep core stabilizers of your lumbo-pelvic region. I have helped individuals in situations similar to yours and in my opinion, this may be the only real long term hope you have in achieving a more normal life.

Much of this type of exercise involves isometric (holding) contractions, so if the pain is mechanical in origin, these type exercises are unlikely to cause pain since they do not involve actual mobilization and movement (the whole basis of stabilization training).

joral balra

replied on May 16th, 2005

New User

I Really Recommend This Natural Treatment

I recommend, in order to correct the herniated disc, a different treatment.

The treatment consists of 10 to 15 sessions of a medicine derived from a plant of central asia called colchicum autumnale. It is applied by venous route, injected in the sanguineous torrent and from there it travels directly to the disc or the discs there that are injured.

i hope you feel better very soon!

kidder1961

replied on July 5th, 2005

New User

Hello tiedie..... Did you have a disogram taken that?
If not try that. When I had mine done they it was worst off then I thought all the disc in the lumbar are torn bulge ect. They say that if I would have the surgey I would be lucky if this works are that I come out even walking.

Pilleus

replied on July 5th, 2005

Experienced User

Sorry to hear about all the pain you are going through. My husband has attacks like that too. Then I have to try to get him to the hospital when he's having an attack. He's had one surgery but still has attacks. He's now doing excercises to help strengthen the muscles around the bad discs.
His back surgeon gave him a book of excercises to do every day for the rest of his life.

whohidjohn

replied on July 7th, 2005

New User

It's down right scary to hear people recommend to others to have surgery or take drugs for their back pain. I mean, you have to do what you have to do but I agree with the one that recommended a specific diet first and then I think it's about exercising and stretching properly to help elleviate or stop the pain.
I have sciatica......Been to the chiropractor.....Seen the xrays.....Listened to them tell me I may need surgery etc. Stopped going.
Did not believe them and started to stretch my leg and back based on what I feel more than what I know.
For more then 10 years I have been pain free if I follow my stretching routine. If I stop for more than two weeks the pain comes back. Get it in the back and the leg.
I also notice that I can get the pain if I curl up at night when sleeping. No curling....I lay straight in the bed arms down by my side and no turning.
I just make sure that all of my muscles, nerves and tendons are fully stretched and no problems.
See my other post on how to do this stretch if interested.
Don't knock it till you try it.

LAWANNA

replied on July 18th, 2005

New User

Re: I'll Never Do It Again

tiedie71 wrote:

I have had 4 epidural injections and they have help for a very short time. Not even a month. My last step is the disogram is that what you had. I have been is alot of pain for the last 3 days. So now that is the step they want to take. I just want to talk to someone that has had it done. I am scard to death of needles. So please let me know. Thanks lawanna

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