Monday

The most pain since birth

One week ago, I was fine. Completely pain-free, doing whatever I wanted, walking every morning before work, running a bit, and starting to work out more. Last Sunday night, I did about 50 walking lunges while walking the dog. I'm not sure if that's what triggered my sciatic pain to come back, but something was not right.

Monday, the pain got a little worse, but I still walked in the morning without too much trouble. Went to work as normal.

Tuesday, I got up to walk, but the pain was not going away with movement like it normally did, so we only walked 1 mile.

Wednesday, I got up to walk but couldn't do it. I went to physical therapy instead. During the session, the PT thought my back was a little tight, so at the end, he did a little fascia loosening massage. I'm not sure if this made the pain worse, or just combined with the already deteriorating back.

Thursday, went to work in severe pain and toughed through a day-long meeting until 2pm. Went home and took more naproxen, but it was not even touching the pain anymore.

Thursday night is where things went bad. I took several naproxen pills, tried ice, tried every position possible, but could not ever get comfortable or sleep for more than maybe 2 hours total. By this point, I cannot walk, stand up straight, lay down in any position and can barely sit hunched over. This pain had me writhing and moaning on the floor most of the night. At 5am I gave up and went to the ER at work.

They told me to have a percocet (pain killer) and some prednisone (steroids) and sent me on my way. The ruptured disc in my back has stuck it's little turtle head out of its hole again, and is pushing on my sciatic nerve - but this time it's so much worse than before.

Friday night I took all kinds of percocet and advil, and maybe slept for an hour at a time, totaling 5-6 hours. The pain was still VERY real. I still can't walk without being hunched over, and more than 10 or so steps has me in tears. That made it very difficult to even pick up the 21-pound baby, much less carry him or comfort him to sleep.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty much repeats of Friday. Predisone, Percocet, Advil, repeat. Throw in a heating pad and a little bit more sleep.

Today (Monday) I'm finally feeling a little bit of relief (only if I consistently take my pills) and actually slept for 4.5 hours, then 3 hours straight, so that was much better. I am going to get an MRI tomorrow and hopefully get a surgical consult soon after that. While I do NOT want to have surgery (probably microdiscectomy), I feel like that is the only logical next step. This disc could come back out at any time and I do not want to be in a wheelchair every few months.

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