I haven't blogged much lately, even though I've been reading all the blogs I follow and commenting once in a while. Everything that I would have blogged about has been covered by most of you and y'all have done quite well, so anything I would have said would have been along the lines of "What she said!"
I'm getting an MRI done tomorrow (Thursday, 21st) for my migraine headaches (finally), but my doctor won't order an MRI for my lower back pain. She says they only do those in the case of a pinched nerve that needs surgery, but that's not what my knee doctor told me (no way do I want to have surgery on my back). She seems to think it's muscle spasms (even though flexeril doesn't even begin to touch the pain I have in my lower back when I have to stand for more than 5 minutes). She poked along my spine, from my neck to below my waist, and while it didn't hurt until she got to the middle of my back, when she poked my spine from about 3" above my waist to 4" below my waist, I almost cried because it hurt so bad. I told her I can't sleep on my back because I end up in so much pain, I have trouble getting out of bed. I can't sleep on my right side for the same reason, so 95% of the time I'm stuck sleeping on my left side (and at that, I still only sleep for about 4 hours and then I have to get up for a half hour or so and sit in my chair, then go back to bed and hope I can get another couple hours of sleep). If I stand for more than 5 minutes, the pain hits me and if I don't sit down right away (or, if I'm walking, don't find something to lean on, like a shopping cart), then my legs get numb and I get weird shooting pains in my buttocks (yeah, probably TMI, there), then I practically collapse when I can sit down. Funny thing about it all, though, is that once I'm sitting down (or leaning, bent over at my waist), the pain goes away almost immediately. That doesn't sound like any muscle spasms I've ever had before (like the charley horses I get in my calves or my feet). So she's referring me to physical therapy for exercises to strengthen my back muscles. I'm hoping that will work to fix this back pain, but I'm just not sure how much it will help, if it's not a muscle problem to begin with. And then if it doesn't work, I've wasted my co-pays and the insurance companies' money on something that didn't work (but if it's not a pinched nerve, then I'd waste that money on an MRI, maybe). I don't know, I guess I'll go to physical therapy and see what happens.
I did go in for the cortisone shots in my knees, but the doctor I saw for that said that he thought the rooster comb shots might be a better way to go, since the cortisone shots only worked for a couple of months when I got them last year (the rooster comb shots are supposed to last for a year). It's a series of 3 shots, I got one last Tuesday, one this Tuesday, and the last one will be next Tuesday. DH is getting them for his knee too, but his doctor isn't so sure they'll help him much, his knee is bone on bone, no cartilage left there at all. If the shots don't work for him, he's looking at a knee replacement. One of the doctors he saw said DH is too young for that at 53, that the replacement will wear out and have to be done again. But the doc he saw today said that knee replacements last about 25 years now, so DH would be almost 80 before he'd need it replaced a second time, and he doesn't see a problem with doing it now if these shots don't work (don't you just love how doctors see eye-to-eye on treatment options? And these are doctors that work for our government, at the Veteran's Administration Medical Centers, tell me again how government running health care is going to be really good for us).
So that's what's been going on with us the last couple of weeks, and one of the reasons I haven't blogged about anything lately. Right now, I'm feeling too old, too fat, too tired, and in too much pain to really give a shit about much of anything. Hopefully, that will improve soon. It can't last forever, can it?
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