The Cumberland Post

The Cumberland Post
My Backyard, Six Miles from the Cumberland River

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Back Blues

This will be a short post. I haven't felt up to blogging since last Saturday a.m., the day I got up with some bad pain in my back. If you've had this problem, you know what I'm talking about. You tend to tense up in anticipation of the pain as you try to stand or sit or move and that just adds to the problem.

I've had problems with a couple of herniated discs since the late '90s and had three or four major flare ups starting in 2000. That one in 2000 was a doozy and took a couple of months to subside. Besides my regular doctor, I even visited a chiropractor, which helped.

The other episodes since then have been manageable with pain meds (including cortisone injections) and a few exercises the physical therapist gave me. I feel sure this episode is not major, but it's painful and pretty well incapacitating nonetheless. I had hoped to avoid the doctor and the cortisone (those shots really wire me up for a couple of days), but I'm going tomorrow.

I've started a couple of other posts that I might get around to tomorrow but I just wanted to let you know I haven't fallen off the ends of the earth. At least not yet.

Time for some "Back Ache Blues." An original by Derek J. Holak. His lyrics are right on the money.


2 comments:

  1. I feel yore pain, quite literally. I had surgery for two herniated disks in '98 and went through one solid YEAR of hell. The surgeon who eventually did the deed was conservative (thanks be to The Deity at Hand for that) and didn't want to cut me right away. So it was physical therapy and other stuff for about three months until I BEGGED him to do the operation. And then more PT, etc., etc. I'm not exaggerating a bit about one solid year of pain.

    I hope all goes well for ya today, Dan.

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  2. Buck, thanks for commiseratin'. I've thought about the surgery too, but almost everyone I've talked to says it's worse after the operation than it was before. I'm really glad to hear that yours turned out well. You've give me another view on the surgery now and at some point I may reconsider getting the operation. My GP has recommended it, but so far I've resisted.

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