Sometime in the early part of 2010 my lower back began hurting. I can't really pinpoint the exact time other than I recall using the Stairmaster at the gym and then having miserable pain the next day. It took several days for the pain to subside and disappear, but it did. Somewhere between the Stairmaster usage and the beginning of 2010 it started again. I can remember discussing the problem with my neighbor, who will have been dead now for a year next month.
There were days that the pain made me miserable. There were days that I had no pain. During my summer illness of 2010 I mentioned my back pain to every doctor I saw, but since it didn't fit with whatever disease they were thinking about at the time, no one paid any attention to the back pain. By the end of the year the pain had creeped into the sciatic nerve of my right leg. I know this time frame because as I was climbing up on the examining table in the gastroenterologist's office, I whined about my pain and asked her if she did massages. She didn't, but understood my misery.
Slowly the pain worsened and worsened. If the sciatic nerve bothered me on a day, the back pain didn't. If the back hurt on one day, the sciatic nerve usually didn't. I didn't take anything for it. I whined a lot. I had the girls give me massages. I stretched it out, but mostly I reclined daily on my back. I think I was in a prone position more often then an upright position for the first six months of this year. My friend, a physical therapist, checked me out and thought it might be my sacrum. She gave me exercises to do and told me my posture sucked. Finally, I couldn't take it another minute, and I scheduled an appointment with my family physician.
She listened to me, asked questions, and typed everything up neatly into her computer. She had me lie down and performed a series of tests, much like the ones my physical therapist friend had done. My left leg was definitely stronger then my right. She ordered several x-rays and gave me a prescription for a muscle relaxer.
I went downstairs and had the x-rays done that morning. The results came in yesterday. They showed a mild case of degenerative disc disease, which turns out not to be a disease after all. It is a term used to describe wear and tear on your spinal discs. The discs are soft and spongy and separate the vertebrae that make up the spine. These discs act as shock absorbers for the spine. When degenerative disc disease takes place it is usually in the lower back and the neck. It is usually caused by age, but a major or minor injury can also be a cause. Most people have some form of the disease, and some people feel pain and some people don't.
Apparently I am one of those who feels pain. It is miserable. I have a pretty high threshold for pain, but this is starting to make me crazy now. The muscle relaxer knocks me, out and while it provides my kids with entertainment, it doesn't really do much for the sciatic nerve. The doctor suggested that I take ibuprofen every 4 hours. She suggested I cut the muscle relaxer in half. She suggest physical therapy and exercises. She said if things didn't get better she would give me a steroid. Other than that? Have a good life, sorry you hurt.
I'm grateful that it isn't anything major, but seriously? Why is it that I have these weird ailments that no one can explain, let alone cure? The ibuprofen seems to help the lower back pain. I'm doing the exercises and heading back into the gym. I'm sure dropping twenty pounds would help too, but I'm heading home next month where I plan to eat Donut Bank donuts every four hours along with my meds. In the meantime, I'm eating lots of fruits, and I bought a bag of carrots at the grocery on Monday. Perhaps come the new school year, I will have a nice regiment going that will cure me, and then I shall write a medical paper on this disease-that-really-isn't-a-disease.
Or not.
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