ABOUT DEPESSION AND BEING BUSY

[Guest guest]

I dont think you meant any offences--

and not to sound harsh, but depression is not inhibited from being busy.Maybe

the blues can be distracted but---

depression s a disease and being busy does not mean it will not affect you,

chronic pain and a limited life style can bring on a horrendous depression.

Don't offend those of us who have the insidious and endogenous depressions from

mental illness and or terrible physical or chronic illness

Ann

 

From: Bry Carling <bcarling@...>

Subject: Newcomer Questions

neck pain

Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 9:12 PM

Hi everyone - I am new here and would LOVE to get some advice

and share experiences... I hope it's OK to ask this much in my first

message.

I am age 59 and have had back pain on and off since about age 21.

At times I was helped by some things - and not by others (MedX machine

for one.)  Chiropractic treatments never helped much. Around age

23 I was given an MRI and told that I had a herniated disk L4-L5

and some scoliosis. I had numerous painful episodes from age

23 to 40, sometimes ending up unable to get out of a bed or off

a sofa for days at a time.  Fortunately these incidents were far

enough apart that I was able to function normally almost all of the time.

I am finding out that my experience is not that uncommon. Plenty of

my friends have back problems, as do my mom and my daughter.

However, at age 40 I had some lidocaine injections that helped

a LOT, and was given some orthotics that pretty much took away

the pain episodes completely.

Like others, I learned how to lift better, stand better, stretch, exercise

etc.  I was also found to have a fallen arch on my left foot. I developed

some pain in the left foot from time to time. This comes and goes

but the foot is now pretty abnormal looking, with the fallen arch and

the toes are pushed to the left.

The orthotics  helped me for about 8 - 10 years and I only rarely

got back injuries that hurt, and the pain soon went away.

After a while the pain came back more regularly in my back and

I noticed how restricted my movement was especially my left leg

losing more flexibility and the same for my lower back.

Now I have been getting bad cramps in both legs, and tingles in my

left arm and hand. Also some back pain from time to time, and

sometimes a little difficulty standing for any length of time due to the pain.

I have tried physical therapy / rehab, new orthotics, a new expensive

office chair, an MRI,  a nerve conduction EMG test (OUCH!) and so

far no real help.

The MRI shows arthritis in several areas, and some pinching of

the nerves in both my lumbar region and neck. C6-C7,  L4-L5

and I forget where else...

Now they say that I have spinal stenosis, arthritis, etc. Not fun.

My latest attempts at self help include a weight loss program.

I have lost ten of the 40 pounds I need to lose in the past two weeks.

Yes, even with the holidays(!) and I have also started going to the gym,

which DOES seem to help a little already with the leg cramps and

certainly with the weight loss.

I was taking Skelaxin, prednisone, Butalb-APAP-Caff for pain etc.

The pain specialist gave me some Voltaren Gel (Diclofenac) to try,

which is pretty useless as far as I can tell. I take the prredinisone

occasionally for mouth sores. I know it can help back pain somewhat

too.

The other physician who performed my neuro tests said that

they will probably want to give me epidural cortisone injections.

So I have been reading up on this. I know that they need to use

flouroscopy and one friend recommended having general anesthesia

for it too.

I spoke with another friend today and he said that he had problems

with he use of this cortisone because the pain relief caused him

to not realize when he was getting hurt. He said that he did more

damage and ended up having to have two vertebrae fused. Just

like some other people who I have spoken with about having

bones fused, he was not pleased with the result. He still has

back pain and now has other complications too. (not sure what he meant.)

I spoke with another friend recently who has a titanium rod in her back

and she is not at all pleased. She says that it is better than nothing, but

still seems unhappy with it. Perhaps the restricted movement puts

strain on other areas.

Now I feel some reservation about proceeding with the epidural treatments if

my regular pain specialist doctor does in fact recommend them.

Trouble is - I have a job where I have to do some lifting - sometimes

as much as 50 pounds, several times in one day. I also play music

and need to lift my musical instruments in and out of a van etc.

Thankfully I am still very active and there is a lot that I can still do,

but it has been a painful period for me over the past 4 - 5 months

since things started geetting really painful.

I am cautiously optimistic about the improvements I am getting with

going to the gym and strengthening my core lately, but wish I had

learned more about all of this years ago and taken my health

more seriously. I wish my family doctor hadn't taken it so simply too,

until I demanded relief from the pain after several months of

trying things again and again that didn't work.