My Back

I can't remember if I've posted anything about my back or not. But since it has been affecting me pretty significantly, I thought I should say something about it. Many of you may know that I was in physical therapy last year for 6 months with severe sciatic pain and piriformis syndrome. The two things aggravate each other and cause me a lot of pain. I was in PT from January through June last year and was finally feeling pretty good. Of course, at the time I left therapy, I was pregnant. In the first few months of the pregnancy, I managed to stay in pretty good shape and felt good. But then I got put on strict bed rest. So... all the muscles I had built up and the strength and flexibility I had gained was completely lost! That's what almost 10 weeks of bed rest will do to the body. Then you add a “little” stress on top of that and a baby in the hospital for two months and you have a combination which brings back all the pain from before plus more.

In May I finally went to see my doctor to have him refer me to PT again. I knew I had a long road ahead of me in order to get myself back in shape. Before I could get in for therapy though, we went on vacation and during that time, probably due to the long road trip, my back caused me excrutiating pain. The spasms in my lower back were incapacitating. I could barely function at all. As soon as I returned from our trip, I started PT. It really helped with the muscular issues but I felt like something more was going on. My therapist suggested I go back to my doctor and ask him to order an x-ray or MRI.

I saw my doctor and had the x-ray taken. It didn't show anything conclusive, so he ordered an MRI. The results of that showed I had a herniated disc (between L3-L4), a bulging disc (between L4-L5), and arthritis in joints L3-L4-L5-S1. Yuck! When I met with my doctor to follow-up on the MRI, he said at this time, there is no treatment other than stretching, gaining flexibility and core strengthening. He said the disc and arthritis concerns are “mild” but he is somewhat concerned because I am so “young.” His words, not mine! :)

It is too bad that I have these issues but I am doing all I can to get better and minimize the pain and degeneration. Physical therapy is definitely making a difference and I am stronger and have more range of motion than I did 5 weeks ago when I started. I hope it continues but I realize it is going to take consistent work on my part in order to stay as healthy as possible. It's just hard because I already have so much going on it's hard to add one more thing to the list. But I will do what I have to do.