Connect
← Return to Low back pain & neuropathy issues
Discussion
Low back pain & neuropathy issues
Spine Health | Last Active: May 26, 2022 | Replies (213)Comment receiving replies
I'm in the same boat except I'd love to be on my feet for 15 minutes at a time. Cancer left me with 1 lung and COPD in addition I have far more back issues than I care to relate. Never been a real advocate for suicide but I got to a point where pain, even when seated was so unbearable I couldn't see the point in being alive. What saved me was an Intrathecal pain pump which is a small pump surgically implanted in my stomach which slowly drips tiny amounts of dilaudid into a catheter that runs up my spine. I get it refilled at the doctors office once every 3 months. It gives me 2.75 mg per day plus another 1 mg. that I can deliver 1/10th of a mg. at a time with the use of a remote control. It is 300 times more effective than oral drugs. It replaced 252 mgs. of assorted narcotics per day that were really doing me little if any good but were making Johnny a dull boy indeed. I still can't walk very far without a cane or a walker but when I'm seated or lying down down I have very little pain.
My cancer also left me light 20 lympne nodes so my left leg is wrapped in 5 layers of assorted bandages 23 hours a day for the rest of my life. I barely moved at all the first year after cancer. My surgical wound didn't stop draining for 9 months after surgery so I had a tube coming out of my leg and draining into a bag which had to be emptied around every half hour. The worst part was that the wrapping on my leg would slip down and pull the tube out along with the stitches that held it in place. I had to give up blowing glass, gardening, playing guitar, walking, hunting, fishing and cooking. I'm still retired from my profession as a glass artist and haven't had a garden or gone hunting since 2014 but Getting rid of the damn bag on my leg and getting my pain back to manageable levels has really improved my life, my happiness and eased my depression.
My neuropathy is really helped by Amitriptyline and Lyrica. I was also dealing with almost constant cramping which has been almost cured with Baclofen. I'm a Pharmacist's dream date but life has gotten better. The other thing that was holding me down was a need for 12 hours of sleep a day and being tired when I was awake. Breathing with just one lung is a tiring process. The last piece of the puzzle was filled in 3 weeks ago when my doctor put me on 10mg. of Adderall twice a day. I still wake up tired but I am wide awake for 14 hours a day and I'm reasonably happy. By the way, I am 66 years old.
I wanted to walk so badly that I went back to Physical Therapy to try to strengthen my lower back. I really need to exercise or turn into nothing but lard. It hasn't helped my walking yet but my PT did turn me onto a NuStep cross training machine at the gym. You use it seated and it puts no pressure on your back. I work it furiously for about an hour everyday. I'm actually starting to loose weight which is great for how I feel about myself. I'm hoping if I can drop 50 lbs. and strengthen my one good lung and my legs that I will be able to walk around on my beautiful 25 acre property. I can't say enough about what exercise does for your sense of well being.
Someone else mentioned "tapping". Great stuff. It saved me when I was really deep in depression years ago. Depression makes your experience of pain much worse. Other things I have found useful are Qigong, (which is the mother of yoga, acupuncture and Thi Chi), Healing Touch, and massage. I'm getting a massage tomorrow and have a Healing Touch session on Saturday. I hope something I've shared will be helpful, let me know.
wsh66
Replies to "I'm in the same boat except I'd love to be on my feet for 15 minutes..."
Reading through these posts I hear a lot of hopelessness and a lack of confidence in doctors and other medical institutions. It's hard to break out of hopelessness and loneliness. It's really hard when doctors run from you because they have experienced their forms of hopelessness when treating pain patients or they are afraid of prescribing pain meds. I went through a lot of this. I've been a pain patient for more than 20 years. Finding the right doctor changes everything. I don't know where folks are located but for me winning the pain treatment marathon happened when I got treatment at the Pain Clinic at M Health in Mpls. They didn't treat me like a criminal because I wanted medication to treat my pain. They understood I had tried everything else, PT, massage, rolfing, injections,ect.ect. ect. They medicated me until the meds stopped working and then they gave me my pump which is really great.
I found several alternative therapies that may not have extincted my pain but they did help end my depression around the pain and gave me a much more positive attitude. I plan to add to this later but now I have to go to the gym. Love and blessings to everyone in this group and see this message.
Thank you for your message. It gives me hope. Good luck.
For all you have had and are going through you are a real trooper to us all Thank you for sharing your story.
Bless you for sharing your health issues and your proactive approach. It gives all of us hope to fight the good battle.
I did go the gym today, twice. The first time i did 55 minutes on the NuStep cross trainer. It’s a wonderful device. I can’t walk more than 20 feet without using a cane and even with a cane it gets very painful very fast. (I love going to the grocery store daily as It gives me social contacts and the carts make really good walkers.) Sorry, I digress. The NuStep positions your body, (seated, recumbent),in such a way that your back is not loaded at all. You work your arms with a push pull motion and your legs while pushing forward. After an hour or so I’m dripping sweat and feeling the effects on my one good lung. I’ve only been doing this for 3 weeks and it’s getting stronger already. My cancer treatment gave me chronic hospital pneumonia which left me with COPD and my right lung collapsed and the diaphragm paralyzed. With only one to work with I need to make it stronger.
After my workout I took my 31 year old son who has Down’s syndrome to work at the Pizza Barn where he has been a dish washer for the ;last 15 years. Then I went back to the gym for a complete massage with coconut oil and hot rocks. Massage won’t cure your pain issues but think about it. When you have chronic pain how often does your whole body feel really great for a solid hour? Every muscle, every joint every pore on your skin is transformed into an instrument of pleasure. We’re usually happy to just not hurt. This is way beyond just not hurting. This is pleasure. Your body, the source of your pain, the source of all your displeasure and you depression is transformed into the source of your pleasure. The warm oil, the hot rocks the masseuses powerful and skilled hands. It’s just wonderful.
Alternative therapies like Massage, Qigong, Yoga, Thi Chi, Acupuncture, tapping, (Thought Field Therapy), and Healing Touch may not cure you. They might not replace your drugs or your spinal stimulator or your surgeon but they do all contribute to improving your general sense of well being and when that happens your pain or your experience of your pain lessens and improves. These alternatives may not be founded in modern science, you may nor be able to test them and produce repeatable results but they are not scalpels and pills nor are they parlor tricks and yes they don’t work for everyone. You’re dealing with nontraditional healers and you must have confidence in them and in what they do. They are bringing you gifts that existed for thousand s of years before there was modern medicine. Many of the oldest come from the east where they had highly organized bureaucracies, organized cities and libraries while we of European descent were still running around hitting each other with rocks. These are not stupid peoples. They hung on to things like Qigong because they work.
I don’t use Homeopathy. I do or have used Qigong, massage, Cranial sacral Release, Yoga, Tapping and Healing Touch. In fact, tomorrow afternoon I’ll be receiving Healing Touch for an hour and a half and I’ll be getting from a RN who has worked at our local Fairview clinic for years.
I’m in pain right now as a result of my workout. However the trade off is worth it. The exercise and the massage elevate my mood so much that dealing with my pain is easier. In many periods over the past 20 years I have been as miserable and hopeless as anyone who checks in here. I have all of modern medicine and several great doctors at my disposal and we have run out of answers. They do all they can and they do a great job but I still have significant pain. There are other answers to turn to and not just alternative therapies. It gets down to individual choices and attempts to improve ones mood and one’s outlook of life. The only alternative I refuse to entertain is to give up.
I wish you all Love and Blessings.
Sounds like your doing all the right things
Connect
@wsh66
Thank you for telling us about your experiences. You've been really proactive in the care you receive. I have ten acres that I enjoy caring for. We have friends who have two horses boarded here, and they take care of the irrigating, which is a real blessing to us. I find that walking around the yard, working, is less painful on my feet than walking on hard surfaces like stores.
I'm glad the pump does a good job for you.
Jim