Last Tuesday, I reported that I had seen my specialist and he gave me an epidural shot into the troubled disk. The shot, as I suspected, was working like a charm. IN fact, last Friday I was able to work out on the stair-stepper (at a low impact setting) for half of an hour without pain. And Saturday, my back was feeling so well that I was able to walk on the treadmill and work myself up to a speed of 4.2, which was nearly a slow jog. Total walking mileage since the shot till Sunday was 18.5 miles. And, to highlight another milestone: Up to Monday afternoon, I was finishing a third consecutive day (out of the last six weeks) that I did not have to pop any ibruprofen and/or Tylenol to help alleviate pain.
Then, I had my physical therapy appointment Monday afternoon. This first session went as any other PT session that I had ever been too, until the last exercise. And this time, the therapist (who I have worked with twice before without any problems) put me on a spine stretching machine. He figured that it would help alleviate some of the pressure on my lower back.
So he straps me into this tight waist wrap, marks the setting on the machine, and lets it go through its series of stretching that reminded me of the ebb and flow of the waves. I was stationary like the beach and the sea would pull at my sand, trying to stretch out the shoreline. Well, I wasn’t even five minutes into the exercise and the machine began pulling so hard that my back immediately starting hurting. So I immediately told him what I was feeling. He quickly lowered the stretching value and had me finish out the series of stretching. Though it didn’t necessarily hurt me, my back felt very odd throughout each stretching.
After it was over, I crawled off the machine. It hurt just to walk. My back completely felt different--I felt literally different – leaving the PT office than it did when I walked in.
That night, I barely slept because of the back pain. Tylenol nor advil could even touch it. I had tingling sensations going up and down my left leg; sometimes numb spots migrated around the bottom of my foot. I was so distraught with this setback, that I thought to myself that I wanted to drive myself in front of the oncoming train that goes through town at 4 AM each morning.
Last night, I got out and walked some. I walked two miles but it took me nearly 50 minutes to walk those miles because of my decreased range of motion.
Today, I’m still in pain. Still have the shooting pain going down the left leg, accompanied with tingling and numbness. But, all of this isn’t as painful as Monday night or Tuesday day.
7:30:30 PM  | |
|
