G'day
After a workplace injury some 20 years ago I have been left with a permanent back issue, and have learnt just to deal with it the best I can, I have had so many mri's and xrays I glow in the dark, and have seen so many people from physio's to chiropractors who for the most part just seemed to agitate the issue with treatments, in the end I went to see a professor of orthopedic surgery and after more extensive testing and a test where they inject you with radioactive dye and xray you which made me crook and gave me flu like symptoms after telling me there where no side effects, I went back to him for the results and all he said was that he would not operate on me as he did not think he could fix it but could possibly make it worse, then he went on to tell me that I should go swimming and learn to live with it. :lol:
I have found all these so called experts are for the most part just feeding off you and not one single person I have seen has offered me a real solution and they just send you here and there for further tests and to be tampered with by others who don't have any answers either, one smart *** young doctor just tole me "well you are middle aged so what do you expect", that was about 7 years ago now.
What I have found is management of the issue is the key, I have been unable to return to full time work because of flare ups and sleep issues as I never sleep through the night anymore, its 1.29am now and went to sleep at about 7.30, I will stay up for a few hours and then go back to sleep for a couple of more hours, this is usually due to pain in my back and legs, that wakes me up all the time and makes getting a good nights sleep very hard, often have to take nanna naps in the day as well.
Medication is one of the things that I found difficult as I am not a pill or potion person at all, some of the medication just made me feel worse and caused me stomach issues and feeling worse for it, I rarely take anything now except on occasion I will take dispirin direct and also anti inflammatory called celebrex (someone else mentioned this drug earlier) which agrees with me and as far as I can tell has no adverse side effects
layful:, for the most part I felt better when I didn't take all the junk that they were feeding me.
As far as on the spot treatment goes, heat bags that you can warm in the microwave are the go, in the bush you could use a hot water bottle, a really handy thing to have on hand is a masseuse lucky for me my lady friend is a remedial therapist, so I get some treatments when I am home, the happy ending joke is still not funny either by the way, and she uses a product called "rock sauce" and when properly rubbed in to the area it actually works well for me, it available in most chemists off the shelf, but whatever you do don't forget you have it on or get it on your hands as if you scratch your nuts or rub your eyes you will not do it a second time, also do not use it when your skin is warm and sweaty as it will burn like hell, gave some to a mate out bush and forgot to tell him that it gets a bit hot on sweaty skin and he put it on and then complained how hot it was.
As the so called experts say just learn to live with it and avoid doing things that you know will agitate the issue, good luck, a mate asked me about it and I told him that I have pain all the time it just varies from day to day and often moves from one spot to another, I told him that if in the morning some part of me did not hurt then I would think that I was dead.
cheers
stayyerAU