Temp: 25 degrees
I guess I haven't actually mentioned this yet, but I've been going to physiotherapy for a couple weeks now, and today was my third appointment. It's something I've been putting off, and bearing with, for about a decade now - but it finally got to the point where I absolutely HAD to do something about it.
So, where to begin... actually, I'm not even sure now how it began... I've always had back problems, that's the joy of being a tall guy... you bump your head on stuff a lot, and you have back problems. Generally my back would only get sore after a lot of activity, and most of the time it was fine, but at some time in the last 10 years, a 'knot' or bulge of some sort formed on the left side of my lower back, which I though was a slipped disc or out of place vertebrae since it was pretty painful at times. But, while I probably said 100 times that I really needed to find a chiropractor, I never did. Sometimes it was fine, sometime it was bad, sometime I'd even have to stoop to taking back pills (and I HATE taking pills!)- but I was alway too busy to get anything done about it.
So, last summer, during the infamous four month "event" at my workplace, where I was in the office 80 hours a week for four months, my back got REALLY bad. At first I thought it was because I had gained so much weight after my gallbladder surgery (I packed on 35 pounds within a year), but now I had full blown sciatica - my left leg started going all pins-and-needles after sitting for long periods of time, then it would just fall asleep, or feel like it was on fire for no reason, and then after a while, it was just permanently pins-and-needles.
I KNEW I had to do something about it, but when you're working 80 hours a week in an 'essential service' job, it's pretty hard to get to a doctor ... especially when leaving work early means having to cross an angry picket line...
I actually DID get into my doctor though, and even got to an X-Ray clinic that was open on Saturdays, but the Xrays showed that there was nothing wrong with my spine ... of course, it could still be a nerve, muscular, cartiledge, or disc problem - that wouldn't show up on X-rays ... so my Doctor gave me a referal to physio. This was in September - nearly a year ago, and I distictly remember telling my Dr. that my leg had been asleep for six months at that point. Unfortunately, I never made it to the physio clinic.
Well, a month ago, it was getting so bad that I wasn't sleeping more than an hour at a time, because i'd always wake up with my leg on fire and have to shift my position to get it to calm down. I knew I'd better get it taken care of soon, but by this point was starting to worry that surgery might be the only option. But then I started waking up with my left leg in atrophy every morning, and I'd have to shake it back alive so that I could hobble to the shower... THAT started to scare me - crap, I've gotta get this taken care of - I don't want to lose the use of my leg! What I figured was just a pinched nerve that I could "deal with" was getting more serious. So, I wnt back to the doctor and got another referral - or, as it turns out, my original referral was still good.
Two weeks ago I had my first appointment, and the therapist ran a gamut of tests. He was NOT impressed that I had gone so long without treatment, and went to great effort to explain that there is now so much compounded damage that whatever the initial cause was is inconsequential now - the most damage is because my body has been compensating for it for so long. The big knot of muscle in my back is actually result of such a bad compression that my left leg is now pulled up a full inch shorter than my right leg, and that imballance has caused a shift through my whole spinal column, pinching nerves, skewing vertebrae, and pushing discs out of place.
Okay, so it's already been a long story so I'll cut it short. Basically, through manipulation, traction, electric muscle stimulation, and exercises, he's already been able to get my left leg down to within a centimeter of the length of the right leg, and when I leave a physio appointment, I can instantly feel that my stance is more centered and my walking is more fluid - but when I wake up in the morning, it's usually back to square one again, so I'm now doing a series of core strengthening exercises to try to train the muscles surrounding my spine back to their proper shape and form.
Of course, none of this helps the original problem - something's still "out" in my back, and it's still sore as hell. That's still got to be identified and fixed.
I'll explain more next week after my next appointment...
Oh, by the way, tonight was YIMO (Yet Another Meal Out) this evening. I was supposed to go grocery shopping and make dinner, but I figured sice we're going away for the weekend, why bother have fresh food in the house - I'll shop on Monday, and we'll go out for dinner again tonight. So it was Stuffed Baby Yorkies at St. James Well - one of my all-time favorite local pubs.
Posted by Calvin at August 16, 2006 03:23 PM