New to group

[Guest guest]

Hello,

I am Nanci, and just joined your group.

I injured my back in March 1996 when I bent over to pick something up at

work. I worked with the pain until Novemeber 1999, and also had

chiropractic treatment and a couple of MRI's, therapy, consults.

Everyone told me I had a torn disc that was leaking and irritating the

nerve. Then had to go off work due to pain. After that, I had a

discogram which showed tears at L4-5 and L5-S1. In March, I had a two

level IDET. That procedure got me off most of the pain meds, or at

least reduced them, but then I had a flare up (no reason behind it that

we can see) and have had much increased pain.

Right now, I am taking Norco, Soma, Vioxx and Methadone for pain. The

methadone is interesting. I have not had the side effects as I had with

OxyContin. I take the Methadone only at bedtime, and the idea is to

have decreased pain upon arising so that I am more motivated to get up

and move around! I also started a medically supervised weight loss

program a week ago, and lost 9 lbs the first week! I believe that my

increase in pain is due to my weight--I am about 60 lbs overweight.

Most of it is in my stomach. I can't do strengthening PT because it

hurts too much. It's like a weird catch-22. So my goal is to get the

weight off and then get busy with some weight training or something to

build up my abdominal muscles. I also sing, and that was becoming more

and more difficult--again because I could not hold those ab muscles in

place.

Next, I will be having a facet block to see if that is part of this

continuing problem, and also a quick steroid injection to settle things

down a bit. As you can probably tell, my goal is to get off the meds.

I hate them with a passion, but can't have a life without them. I know

that the odds are a little against me in this.

I have a family--husband and 3 kids. I go to school right now--music

major. In my previous life, I was a claims manager for a large work

comp carrier in California. So generally I'd be happy to answer

questions for people, if you have any about claims and stuff.

Nanci