Move More, Sleep Better and Longer

In 2002 I crushed the pars in my back from L1-L5. I was told it would heal. Well here I am 6 years later and I cannot have a normal life because of the pain. When I try to stand or walk my legs start to burn and my feet will either feel numb, tingle or burn, or all of the above. I get out of bed and I almost collapse to the floor because the pain is so great. I cannot stand straight up when I get up out of a chair I have to ease into an upright position. I am on very strong pain medication. As a matter of fact I have to take 10 pills a day for one thing or another. I am depressed, I never want to leave my house. I have to take Prozac. I don't know how to handle this way of life that I have now. I went to rehab and the therapist told me it was my pain, to own and learn to live with it that there was nothing that could be done about it. Well that took away all hope that I ever did have. I am now scheduled to go to a neurologist to see what he can do and I am also scheduled for a pain clinic. My psychologist has given me a book to read on living with chronic pain. I am just tired of everyone acting as if this is in my head. I have a very supportive family, but I just keep expecting that support to end and I will be all alone with my pain. I don't ever feel suicidal but I do get tired of the pain and think to myself sometime that it would be okay if something did happen to me and I died. Last year during an exam I found out that I was suffering from urinary incontinence which is related to the nerve damage in my back, I have arthritis in S1-S2. The bad thing about all this is I am only 38 years old. I have a teenage son and a 21 year old daughter and two beautiful grandchildren. But they all have to come to me for visits cause I wont leave the house. I have applied for disability and it takes so long that I am afraid that we will lose our house while waiting. I do get a small disability check from VA because I was on active duty in military when I was injured. I just need someone to talk to that is going through this too. Someone that understands the uncertainty and hopelessness and helplessness.

Hi,

I am 41 years old and in relatively good health. I had been a fitness quest for about 9 months and worked my way up to jogging as much as 13 miles at a time at a 8.5 minute mile pace. I was also doing eliptical machine, lifting weights, abdominal work, etc... I was probably in about the best shape of my life. Then one morning I woke up with with a terrible hamstring pain in my left leg when I got out of bed. I had been playing some soccer with my 7 year old son and some neighbor boys the day before but had not felt like I did anything to hurt myself. I found that I could strech out my hamstring and the pain would go away until I sat down for any length of time. Then when I stood up it would come back and I would have to stretch it out again. I could walk without too much pain. Sitting at work everyday and driving a car was uncomforable. After a couple of weeks it did not get better so I went to my doctor. He sent me to physical therapy. After a couple of times I found that it was getting worse not better. I was beginning to get pain in my quadriceps area and gluteus minimus area pretty bad too. Really my whole hip. I went back to the doctor after a couple more weeks. He sent me back to physical therapy. It kept getting worse. After a couple of minutes on my feet pain was radiating down my whole left leg, especially my calf. Just standing at the sink putting my contacts in, brushing my teeth, and combing my hair became a nightmare. Walking into work from my car almost brought tears to my eyes. My whole hip and calf area had so much pain that I could not believe it. I have had alot of mostly sports related injuries in my life and nothing even compared remotely to this kind of pain. I went back to the doctor again. He said that a gluteus minimus injury could radiate pain down the leg and even showed me a picture, so I believed him. For a couple more weeks it continued to get worse. I went back to my doctor a 4th time and told him that I was going to die if he didn't do something for me. He told me that no one had ever died from a hamstring or other leg injury before. I told him I agreed with that but that I would likely die from the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head!!! He finally said O.K. he would refer me for an MRI. This had all taken about 8 weeks from the morning that the hamstring pain had started. I had been taking Vicodin and Motrin 800's like they were candy and by this time they were only able to knock the pain level down from about a 9 to a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. I had not had even the slightest bit of back pain this whole time. Absolutely no indication whosoever of any kind of back injury so I was totally in shock the day after my MRI when they told me that I had a severe L5-S1 disc rupture. But they sent me the MRI films and it was so obvious. They said that the L5-S1 area is where all of the nerves going down your legs are and that this rupture was compressing my spinal cord by about 50%. They sent me to a spine specialist the next day who gave me 2 shots of a steriod and other stuff directly in the spine. Within a few days about half of the leg pain was gone. A week later they had me come back for 2 more shots in the spine. More of the pain went away this time. I can now feel a little pain in the L5-S1 area since most of the leg pain is now gone. The leg pain was soooooo bad initially that I couldn't feel any back pain at all. Every time I stand up my left foot still goes to sleep for a couple of minutes but most of the leg pain is gone. They tell me that I can start walking again and doing some light elliptical but not to bend at the waist at all under any circumstances. They say that in 1 month they will look at it again and if my body has not started to eat up the rupture they would like to go in and trim off the rupture. They say that it would very minimally invasive and there would be no fusing or anything. This scares me but we will see at what happens....

I suffered from sciatic pain for eight months. It was so bad that I had to go on extended leave from work. I had re-hab...no sucesss...I had steroid injections..got worse.
An MRI showed herniated disc at the L5/S1 level. It was only a small protrusion, not indicative of the pain I was having. My surgeon believed that there was something undetectable causing the pain. He was right, he removed the fragment shown on the exam and another, not seen, about the size of a pencile eraser. I was dismissed the same day and pain free except for the incision. I would rate it at about
two or three on a ten scale. It is now three days post and no sciatic pain.

alvan

I had my L 2 tranverse fractured in Jan. I started getting so sick I thought I was dying. Pain shoots up my right side into my neck to the point it feels like I am having a stroke or something, and it makes me feel real weird. Is this normal, or is this the type of pain one usually experiences with this problem? I started to go to the hospital again last night. It woke me in the middle of the night so severe it was scary. If it didn't get into my neck, it would not scare me so bad.

Thanks for any info. nanaharr

This is my first time at posting anything so bear with me.

A little about myself. Since 2000 I have had pneumonia, two shoulder surgeries right then left for torn rotatar cuffs,open heart surgery and a back fusion at L4/L5 and pacemaker. I had the pleasure of being born with bicuspid valve in my aorta when it should be a tricuspid valve. This was discovered when I was having a physical for the back fusion. I ended up with getting a valve replacement instead of back surgery. Six months later I got the fusion in Oct 2005. It has not stopped hurting since then. It has not been the radiating pain down my right leg. It has been confined to one spot to the right of my lower spine and it burns. To make a long story short 3 seperate doctors, a neurosurgen, a orthopedic surgen and my primary doctor have recommended hardware removal. I chose an artificial valve for my heart which means I take coumadin a blood thinner. This complicates any future surgery but it can be done. I have pretty much made up my mind to have the surgery done. I need some relief. If anyone wants to know more I have written about a ten page journal with full details. Any ideas?

Hi,

I'm very new to blogging. I had an epdural steriod injection in the L5 region May 20, 2008 for a 3-4mm herniation that caused minimal irritation. But the injection greatly increased the sciatic pain. I still have great flexibility and have lost no function. But I have a lot of leg pain. The doctor that did the injection referred me to another doctor and we are going to do tests. I had an MRI done and the herniation actually went down to 2mm. What the hell is going on? For the first time I'm on nerve meds and a TENS unit. My physical therapist thinks its emotional. She said she can move me in every direction and it does not increase the pain. I thought maybe piriformis syndrome but I have too much flexibilty for that. Maybe the doctor injured my nerve.

I really regret having the injection, but I can't turn back time
Carol

Hi All,

Firstly, thank you to the author for writing such a great article.

Also, I thought that I would make a quick comment about sleeping posture based upon my experience for back pain relief.

Firstly, avoid sleeping on your stomach. This tends to increase the curvature of your spine, shortening the muscles and encouraging back sway.

To practice proper posture while sleeping, lay on your site with your knees bent. Use a pillow between your knees for support, which relieves back strain and fights swayback (which is excessive curvature of the spine).

If you prefer lying on your back, make sure you have a pillow under your knees, supporting your back. Your head should be level with your body; contoured pillows are inexpensive and shaped perfectly to hold your neck and head in correct alignment.

Certainly, once your asleep it's easy to go back to old habits; however, constantly reinforcing good sleeping posture will eventually change your habits.

Wishing you all the best,
Charlie

www.BackandNeckPainResources.com