Slipped Disc Symptoms – Twenty Five Months of Recovery

Over the past six months, I have found that ‘many of the symptoms’ of my 3 slipped discs have been receding! My lower back ‘feels so much better’ and for ‘4 days of the week’ I now feel ‘much more like, my usual self’ (Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday). BUT I have found that my recovery now follows ‘a weekly pattern’; because on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, my mind is ‘fully occupied’ trying to ignore ‘as best as I can’:

The Pinched Nerve that I have in my neck, that ‘tortures me’, whilst testing my patience ‘to the absolute limit’, and stopping me ‘doing my usual activities’.

With a pinched nerve in your neck ‘you shall be moving’ like Herman the Munster! Photo by: Cliff, Renamed Image, Licence.

I can still remember ‘the first time’ that this happened: My Dad had ‘driven me’ into a town called Braintree; where I was going to the bank, to have some PPI paperwork scanned. I felt good ‘on the car trip there’; I felt good ‘whilst in Braintree at the bank’; I felt good ‘on the car trip back home’. I felt good ‘for the afternoon’. BUT come the evening, just as I was sitting down ‘eating my dinner’ (and getting ready to go dancing) I started feeling ‘all odd’ (almost otherworldly) as I had ‘an odd sensation’ coming from my neck:

The Pinched Nerve in my neck ‘had said hello’ – for it felt like I had ‘two wires in my neck arcing’. It was horrible, and it ‘stopped me in my tracks’; as I found that I couldn’t concentrate ‘on anything but’ that pinched nerve! I soon realised that going dancing (that evening) ‘was out of the question’ and I headed to bed ‘very early’.

Unfortunately, this pinched nerve ‘has reared its arcs’ many times since then; and each time, it has felt as though ‘two main power lines are arcing’ stronger and stronger! It’s horrible, although I’ve found that ‘the arcing’ is only 50% of the symptom, as the other 50% is a ‘horribly worrying thought’: how is my head connected to my body?
If it hadn’t been for all the other ‘really nasty slipped disc symptoms‘ that have been ‘thrown at me’ since day one, then I’d have been ‘unable to cope with this symptom’. I have found that the pinched nerve in my neck has the following ‘cycle of behaviour’:

Always ‘on a Monday’, reducing ‘through a Tuesday’ and ‘going on a Wednesday’.

On Sunday (15/09/2019) replaced toilet’s siphon. On Monday ‘pinched nerve in my neck’ torture again!

Although if I have ‘done something’ too much (such as when I helped my Dad ‘change the toilet siphon’) then the pinched nerve in my neck, can take until Thursday/Friday ‘to clear’. It’s a slipped disc symptom, that really does ‘get you down’; because it frustrates you! It’s like your living ‘a hermit’s life’. For you feel as though you’d like to resume ‘your life before injury’ but just as you start thinking ‘maybe soon’ (even reminiscing about ‘when you used to go’ running and swimming) then those pinched nerves arc again:

NOT QUITE YET – because I have ‘some more torture’ for you! Its Monday again 🙂

Slipped Disc Symptoms – Nineteen Months of Recovery

Well, my nineteenth month of recovery (from three slipped discs) has had an ‘interesting first’ in it! Whilst I’m getting back to doing ‘many things’ now, I find myself continually amazed at just ‘how weak‘ my leg muscles have become. Before injury, I’d run fifteen miles ‘without thought’; whereas at present, driving to the zoo on a Sunday, walking around for two hours, and driving back ‘is more than enough’. My legs tell me something very quickly:  you’ve done enough! And they ‘remind me of that’ throughout Mondays as well! BUT that is NOT the highlight of this month for me, as whether I wanted to or not, I found myself answering this question in the early hours of Thursday morning:

What’s it like to throw up with slipped discs?

Slipped Discs and Vomit Bug = ‘Extreme Fun’ !!!

I said in an earlier post, ‘pity the person’ who has slipped discs and the seasonal vomit bug. I woke up at 6am Thursday morning, and knew ‘something was wrong’ straight away: I had a ‘belly ache from hell’. By 6:30am I’d ‘fallen onto’ the toilet, holding onto the towel rowel, finding a new meaning for the words ‘chocolate syrup’. I decided to dose myself up on some apple cider vinegar, whilst saying: ‘my back, my back, my back’. By 7:30am it was time for round two of ‘chocolate syrup’; BUT this time I also ‘threw up’. I’d said to myself:  ‘I can’t be sick, I can’t be sick, because of my back’; but alas, the ‘vomit bug’ had other ideas! Whilst I’d hate for this to happen to you ‘at any time’ in less than nineteen months of recovery, here’s a tip:

Keep your back as ‘horizontally straight’ as possible, and DO NOT ‘bend into the toilet’. Bend with your knees instead!

I didn’t really notice the ‘being sick’ to be honest, even when an inch long remnant of a carrot was ‘coming out of my nose’. It would have bothered me in the past, but having ‘been schooled’ in the pain of three slipped discs, not much bothers me now. Although I have just spent thirty hours in bed, just didn’t feel like I could do anything else; but even that, I don’t think would have been possible six months ago! I now have a ‘new saying’ about slipped discs:

Slipped discs really do ‘break your body’ but they also make you appreciate life ‘so much more’ once you do start to heal 🙂 As they ‘put everything’ in perspective!

 

Slipped Disc Symptoms – Eighteen Months of Recovery

It has been ‘quite some time’ since I last blogged about my ‘three slipped discs’ back injury. As of today, many of my symptoms have gone, and I thought that it would be a ‘good time’ to talk about my experiences on video 🙂 So I put my camera on its tripod, and just ‘went for it’:

It’s been a ‘long hard road’ and whilst I know that I’m not fully healed yet (as I keep suffering from pinched nerves – at either end of my spine) at the very least, my mind can now think (mostly) about other ‘more fun’ things, including:

• Getting on with my model painting (Warhammer 40,000 miniatures). I couldn’t do this for around 14 months – as I was not able to ‘sit down and paint’ (as I had to bend my neck). I am currently painting some Khorne Berzerkers and Thousand Sons space marines; in pretty reds, blues and golds; a dry-brush here and there!
• Getting on with some aquarium maintenance. I have a 96 litre aquarium that’s modelled on Atlantis, and has Guppies ‘swimming around in it’. I have now been able to clean up its glass (using my aquarium scraper), and clean its filters (which was impossible before, as I have to lift its lid off, and put it down on the floor).
• Moving some ‘piles of paperwork’ around my room. OK that’s not ‘so much fun’, but at least I can see my room’s carpet again 🙂 Although, it’s not time for major tidying / ‘spring cleaning’ just yet! Or is that ‘just an excuse’? I’m a hoarder after all …
• Opening the garage door. I can now do this again! Before injury, I was always in my Dad’s garage. But when I slipped those discs, I didn’t go near it (by myself) for around 16 months. With slipped discs ‘pushing up’ garage doors – is a NO-NO!

In any case, you need to appreciate ‘one saying’ when you’re recovering from slipped discs (which are also called herniated discs):

It’s a long hard road, where no one will want to know (such as your ‘so-called friends’); but the slipped discs themselves will ‘toughen you up’. Tyrannosaurus Rex!

Slipped Discs? ROAR!!!

Slipped Disc Symptoms – Snapping Back

In my third bout (two slipped discs lower back, one slipped disc upper neck), whilst wondering ‘what have I done to deserve this?’ there was one symptom that would often ‘grind me to a halt’ more than any other:  feeling like ‘my back was snapping in half’.  It was horrible, and whilst you’re suffering that particular symptom, your life really does ‘go down the pan’.

Our ‘human bodies’ are really just machines, and when your ‘that broken’ it’s going to take ‘some time to heal’.  I read somewhere that ‘slipped discs’ heal in six weeks …  I have ‘no idea’ who wrote that – as it’s utter nonsense.  I’ve been twenty-one months now (16/05/2019), and ‘only now’ am I beginning to feel anything like ‘my usual self’.  For me, that means ‘running fifteen miles’ and ‘swimming an hour and a half in the pool’ – though I know that I am ‘not quite ready for that yet’.  I’ve learnt my lessons ‘the hard way’ – throughout all stages of recovery! Such as in ‘early stages’ where you have ‘nothing but pain’ and in ‘later stages’ where you have ‘nothing but pinched nerves‘:

I am different now 🙂  I’ve noticed that ‘things other people moan about’ are simply ‘not relevant’.  People seem to spend ‘so long moaning about this and that’ (e.g. five minutes late with the shopping, mess on the hob, spilt something on the floor, that door step ‘needs to be fixed’, televisions not working, their leg/knee/elbow hurts, they have a headache, they have an itch, they lost their job, they’ve been dumped, their ‘tied of being single’, they don’t like ‘so and so’, no one texts them, etc.) and you know what?  None of it matters!  Their all just distractions …

Because when you know what ‘true pain is’ (aka three slipped discs) ‘your free’.  I’ve noticed something ‘about myself’ – I moan ‘considerably less’ (although ironically, Mum would say different!).  It’s simple really, when things go wrong, I ask myself this question:  how does this compare to the three slipped discs I had?  No comparison!  It doesn’t matter!  I now (try to) just concentrate on ‘the fun stuff’ 🙂  Although that doesn’t mean that I am ‘going on’ any zip wires ever again!

I am also ‘much more selective’ about who I am friends with.  My friends count at present is zero, and I don’t give a dam.  Those three slipped discs ‘destroyed my social life’ but I’ve always been good at ‘building things’.  I figured:  why do I need other people?  So now I have fun ‘by myself’ just like I did as a kid 🙂  Happy days!  This weekend I:

• Visited my local tank museum – Remembrance Sunday.  I spent time looking at all the Victorian Era swords, cannons, armour, ‘ships of the line’ (displays); World War Two Era shells, spitfires (wreckage), uniforms and weapons.  I even asked a question about the naval mines they used in WW2, and quizzed ‘the owner’ over a Yamato – as he said ‘a mine could have sunk one’.  I doubt that!
• Commenced investigations into why ‘one of my computer monitors has packed up’.  I ripped out all of the capacitors, and have soldered ‘new ones’ in.  I checked all the switches (on the front) with my multi-metre, all OK.  Though it still ‘doesn’t work’.  My next point of investigation shall be ‘to trace the power button lead through’.  And if not?  Then it’s been fourteen years of hard work 🙂

BUT: Those pinched nerves still remind me of one important fact:

I’m not fully healed yet.

Which reminds me of another important point ‘regarding’ herniated discs:

They ‘test you to the limit’ BUT make you ‘so much stronger’ 🙂

 

Slipped Disc Symptoms – Waterfalls of Tears

I’d forgotten how painful slipped discs could be!  When your life has been ‘going good’ for four to five years you ‘tend to forget’ that you have a ‘bad back’.  Unfortunately, when life ‘throws you a spanner’ and you slip discs in your back (again), then I am afraid that you’re going to be in for ‘a rude awakening’. Which is exactly what’s happened to me, three times ‘over the preceding years’:

As adults, many of us believe that were ‘beyond the realms of crying’. Specifically, that only ‘kids cry’. Well, with slipped discs, you’re likely to be crying ‘like a waterfall yourself’. In my recent bout (two slipped discs lower back, one slipped disc upper neck), last year was ‘hell’ on the run-up to Christmas. I’d never ‘cried so much in my life’. There were two ‘main reasons’ for this:

1. Because of the pain.  Whilst I can laugh about it now.  I wasn’t laughing at the time!  As when you’re in ‘that much pain‘ you just gotta hope that no one promotes you to ‘full dead’.  That much pain will stop you doing ‘pretty much’ everything – I was ‘house bound’ for around ten months or so.  I felt the tears more at night – which only adds ‘even more fun’ to when your ‘trying to sleep’.
2. Because of what I’d lost.  I am afraid that the vast majority of us base our ‘sense of self-worth’ on how many friends we have (together with the ‘social life’ that goes with them).  I must have had around twenty friends at running club, that I’d see two or three times a week.  I haven’t seen them for over a year now (and I am still refraining from running, even twenty-one months later!).  The key point is:  Slipped discs destroy your social life, and I cried about that ‘quite a bit’.

In many ways, recovering from herniated discs is like the storyline that’s found within ‘Queen of the Damned‘ where Lestat has been in his coffin for several years!  Because you really will disappear ‘off the face of the planet’ for quite some time.  You’re going to have to ‘live by yourself’ for a while (just like I’ve had to). Although I have noticed one positive outcome from recovering from slipped discs:

They really do toughen you up 🙂