@saninmich

Hi Sandy and welcome to Mayo Connect! I noticed that your posts have not gotten a lot of responses, so I wanted to let you know I'm following you. I'm a Volunteer Mentor and not a medical professional so I can't give diagnoses or medical advice. I do offer my experience, knowledge, and support.

I'm also responding to your latest post about shoveling snow when you first injured your back. Number 1, my recommendation is that you stop mowing or doing anything that causes you pain in your back! Don't lift anything that weighs more than 5 or 10 pounds either. Don't bend over to pick things up, instead stoop down using your knees, thighs and legs. If you can't do that, let someone else pick things up for you. You are going to need to accept that there are limits to the physical things you can do now.

Back injuries are serious stuff, and you don't want to cause yourself further problems in the future. If you haven't had an MRI, CT scan and/or x-rays of your spine yet, I recommend you ask your doctor to do those - my preference is an MRI as it shows both tissues and bones. You may have a bigger problem and you need to know what's going on in your back and nerves.

Since chiropractic seems to help, I would say continue it, but check with your doctor first. If your doctor doesn't want to do the MRI, etc., then either ask for a referral to a neurologist who can evaluate your back issues, or go to one yourself if you don't need a referral. Just taking pain pills and muscle relaxants treats your symptoms only. When you go, tell them you want the most conservative treatment recommendations for your diagnosis.

I'm making these recommendations from my own experiences with my back. I suffered for many years (35 or so) with lumbar pain, and the last 6 years with neck and arm pain before it got so bad that I ended up in a wheelchair! I finally got an xray in the ER for my neck and arm pain and discovered I had a compression fracture of my C7. No wonder I was in pain! It had already healed, but knowing the cause helps me to take better care of myself and listen to my body.

I was then sent to an orthopedic surgeon to get an MRI and CT scan of my entire spine. I won't go into detail about the mess they found, but it was substantial. After discussing options, I chose to have a laminectomy to remove the piece of my L5-S1 that was impinging on my spinal cord. It was a 2 hour outpatient procedure that provided immediate pain relief for the left side sciatica and nerve pain running down my leg to my toes. Whew!

But, I still had chronic pain on my right sciatic area and down my leg to my toes. I couldn't walk or use steps without extreme pain. However, the surgery for my L4 involves fusing the disks and I really didn't want to do that. Surgeon told me to try everything else to relieve my pain first. So, I tried 2 rounds of PT, acupuncture, massage, and regular chiropractic for no pain relief.

I then read about ART, Active Release Technique, which is a specialized version of chiropractic. The goal is to release muscles and nerves that have gotten bound together due to a trauma. (This sounds like your shoveling incident.) The chiropractic doctor I chose who has many certifications in ART, told me I needed 2 sessions a week for 3 weeks at $600 total. I was nervous above committing to that much money if it didn't work, but I decided to try it. After these sessions I was nearly completely pain free! I continued to get a treatment a month, and now at 1.25 years later, I am still free of that extreme pain. I do have occasional pain, but Tylenol usually takes care of it. If not, I go to my chiropractor for a session of ART. I have withdrawn from all the pain medications I was on, and I feel good. I'm nearly 70 years old.

Please keep in touch and let me know how you're doing and if this post was helpful for you. Gentle hugs. Take care of yourself.