And so it goes.
May. 2nd, 2005 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennlkFollowup with the back doc today. PT didn't work, symptoms worsening (widening area of effect). He wants to do an epidural steroid injection next week. Followup with him three weeks after that. Meanwhile, deal. sigh. The steroid injection won't solve the problem, just ameliorate some of the symptoms. Maybe.
Physical therapy worked out pretty much like I thought it would. Didn't make things better, didn't make them worse. The therapist did some work on my back, to try to loosen things up to relieve some of the pressure on the spine, but it didn't have any noticeable effect. He gave me some new exercises to do (mostly variants on stuff I've been doing for the last 20 years), and essentially said "you don't really need me" (something about doing 30 reverse incline pushups with my feet up on a ball, despite a bad shoulder and a bad back). So we cancelled the last two weeks of PT.
It was snowing a couple of minutes ago, and now the sun is out. Good. Maybe the snow will melt.
Physical therapy worked out pretty much like I thought it would. Didn't make things better, didn't make them worse. The therapist did some work on my back, to try to loosen things up to relieve some of the pressure on the spine, but it didn't have any noticeable effect. He gave me some new exercises to do (mostly variants on stuff I've been doing for the last 20 years), and essentially said "you don't really need me" (something about doing 30 reverse incline pushups with my feet up on a ball, despite a bad shoulder and a bad back). So we cancelled the last two weeks of PT.
It was snowing a couple of minutes ago, and now the sun is out. Good. Maybe the snow will melt.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-03 05:51 pm (UTC)what are your options? Spinal fusion? Disk replacement?
Voodoo?
Just sucks to read about all the unpleasantness you are having to go through.
Wish there was something we (readers) could do to help.
Best wishes for unexpected PT progress!
no subject
Date: 2005-05-04 02:34 pm (UTC)I did two weeks of PT before we (the therapist mostly, I just agreed with him) decided that it really wasn't necessary. (Actually, he said "You don't really need to be here. You're already doing most of the things I can give you, and the usual spinal manipulation techniques aren't working.")
The back doc, when faced with a pudgy woman over 40, made an assumption that turned out to be incorrect. He assumed that I didn't have good core strength, and sent me off to PT to strengthen my back/abdominal muscles, thereby stabilising my back. Unlike many of his patients, I do have decent core strength, and the problem is not that my spine is misaligned or under non-symmetrical stress, nor that it's overly flexible (or overly rigid). The problem is that I tried to break my back over a curb about 20 years ago, and the only thing that kept me out of the doc's office this long is doing the exercises to develop and preserve core strength.
The doc wants to inject an anti-inflammatory into the nerve column to relieve any inflammation. If that doesn't work, he'll hand me off to a surgeon, at which point I get to find out the surgical options. Which probably don't include disk replacement, since the vertebrae may already be fusing (I only got a quick look at the MRI, and wasn't really looking at the vertebrae, but as there's no disk left between them, it's a good possibility).
The worst part is that I can't work in the garden without really regretting it. Haven't really been able to since last fall, and there's a lot that needs to be done. I've pretty much found a level of activity that I can maintain without having a spike in symptoms, but it is gradually getting worse, regardless of how active/inactive I am.