Thursday, March 30, 2006

What I have learned in living with back pain

I have learned that you MUST educate yourself on your condition and be your own advocate. I am fortunate that I have an amazing group of Doctor's... other than my current pain management doctor but he is on his way out. If you don't know what is best for you then who does? There will be times when you have to fight tooth and nail with the insurance company and your physicians so you have to know what you are talking about.

This pea brain pain management guy I am seeing right now has messed me up big time but it assume some of the responsibility for it. He decided that I needed physical therapy to "strengthen my core" now knowing that I have 2 bulging discs and the horrors I experienced with PT in the past I know that this was not the best idea. But I went ahead and played along. 2 days after my first appt. I could not get out of bed... this was on March 7th. I am still in a great deal of pain, more pain than I have been in in quite sometime.

I had an MRI on Monday, I have now herniated both disc, have an annular tear and there is inflammation in the disc (I'm not sure what this means). Of course he can't get me in to be seen until the end of next month so I have contacted the administrator of the corporation for this doctor's group and complained about him not allowing appointment slots for follow-up visits but I will be going to my orthopaedic surgeon. Not that I will have surgery but because I need to have some pain relief and quick. My patch and the Lorcet aren't cutting it.

PT works great in most cases but has not proven to be the best thing for me.

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