Acupuncted, again!

My second intern acupuncture treatment started out a leetle too Marx Brothers for me. There were two interns (different ones than I'd sticking me with pins than the first time) the supervisor and an observer, and they were a bit all over the place. One would start going over my history, the other would cut in to introduce herself, and then they asked if I could take my pants off, and I was like, awesome, please leave so I'll have room to take my pants off, cuz the room is not that big. So then they all got fluttery thinking I needed privacy, and they all filed out, and literally a second later I was like, ok, come back in! At this point I've had massage therapists, doctors, acupuncture interns and a raft of physical therapists seeing and working on my naked ass, so I'm not that self-conscious about taking clothes off. My point is the four of them didn't really have a rhythm. I wasn't expecting much from the session, given their pre-session flutteriness.

Then the interns started palpating points on my back. One of them found a few VERY tender points, meriting an angry 'Ow! Are you sure you're not just pushing down really hard?' from me. The intern assured me she was actually touching me quite gently, so it was decided that pins should go in those spots without delay. This is the part where I gave acupuncture some credence: when they stuck one pin in, the muscle under it actually twitched so much I could feel it, and the pins only go into the top layer of skin. 

Finally they got all the pins in and left me there for 20 minutes. I'm still not sure if it's helping. I always feel dizzy afterwards, but eh... is that a good thing? I don't know. I like hearing the interns talking about which points they're going to stick, cuz all the points are in chinese and all the interns are not chinese. 

More progress

Doctorly gem of the day: "Well, you weren't bs-ing me, that's for sure. According to your MRI, you have a herniated disc!" 

I suppressed my annoyance at said statement, because dude writes the scrips, so... yes.

Also, I jumped 'pon the scale this morning (the better to start a weight loss effort, as overweight is a cause of lower back issues) and found I've lost 7 pounds since this whole ordeal started. Apparently being too crippled to make it to the kitchen and subsisting for two weeks on gatorade equals mad weight loss. To celebrate said fact, I ate half a pumpkin pie. Mmmm, un-seasonal.

Acupuncted

So I can walk again, yay! And drive. Woohoo! I haven't tested how long/far I can walk, but I drove to my PT appointment and to pick up MRI results, and my hip is complaining today, but not too badly. I give it a 4 out of 10. 

MRI says I can has herniated disc and nerve impingement, surprise surprise. Most likely I will continue with present course of conservative treatment. 

Current course of treatment includes letting third year acupuncture interns stick me with disposable needles. I got it done for the first time last week. Two interns and one teacher asked me a bunch of questions, and then poked and prodded to find out where the pain is. Ultimately they decided my gall bladder meridian has too much chi (or too little, I'm not really sure how that works) and so they stuck about 30 pins in my back, neck, hands and feet. A couple of the pins stung a bit, and I couldn't feel the rest. Then they threatened to electrify the pins, but I wasn't quite ready for that. They left the pins in for 20 minutes and then came back and took them out.

Did it help? I'm not sure. The sensation along my sciatic avenue did change from pain to ticklishness, and as I said I have been feeling better, but who knows how significantly the acupuncture helped. After a few days I did notice that my digestion has improved. I have two more appointments scheduled, so perhaps I'll just see what's what later on. 

Clunk clunk clunk bzzzzzzzzzz

I have survived my first MRI. Some observations:

1. I guess this was an 'open' MRI machine, because instead of going head first into a plastic tube, I went feet first into a tube with a big round plastic thingy about three inches from my face. I could see out on either side by turning my head. However, it was still disconcerting.

2. Regardless of the fact that I am not technically claustrophobic, I'm glad I was loopy on painkillers during the MRI.

3. Despite the fact that I have no metal in my body, I still try to convince myself that there must be metal in my body somewhere that I've forgotten about.

4. The music that Montclair MRI has on hand is for rilly old folks. I chose 'Broadyway' at first and it was Old Man River and No Business Like Show Business... too trippy along with the clunky sounds of the machine. I asked the tech to switch it up in the middle to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. It was still trippy but seemed more appropriate. 

The Chronic

It's been about three weeks since my back decided to pinch my sciatic nerve, causing me to become house-bound and to have to visit multiple medical establishments begging for relief. Three weeks. That's like almost a whole month. 

I've never had a chronic condition before other than eczema. Eczema is gross and sometimes annoying, but most of the time I forget about it. Nerve pinchy back pain on the other hand is a completely different story. 

Much of this time has been about adjusting my expectations. In the second week after the flare-up, I was hobbling to my car and driving myself to physical therapy. It was horribly painful to do but I convinced myself I was ok to do it, and in the process I made it worse. Now I don't harbor illusions about mobility and have accepted my awesome roommate's help with rides, and have become well acquainted with Montclair's cab drivers. As a result of such taking it easy-ness, today I feel better, so I'm of course tempted to go to tonight's GSR bout.

Sadly, even I know this would be a terrible mistake resulting in much pain. So, I'm staying in tonight. I'm sad about it though. It's our first home bout in forever, and the first one where our new Hub City Hell Razors will be skating, and well, it am a social event, and being housebound, I'm fairly lacking in those. I miss my bitches. 

Then there are expectations about time; i.e. how long will it take before this is better? I have to abandon any expectations about time since it'll take as long as it takes. Part of me is always screaming 'but this has been going on for three weeks, THREE WEEKS, and it's STILL not better???' but I have to quiet that part. It's frustrating though because this is the time that I'm supposed to be spending temping and looking for a new job, but since I can't walk or sit for any significant period of time I can't work or show up for an interview. So I have to adjust expectations of what I'm 'supposed' to be doing now. 

Aaaand finally... I have to ask for help. Asking for help makes me cry. It's not necessarily the asking for help (although that is hard) but it's the nature of the help I'm asking for. I need help with cleaning my room and taking trash out, and buying groceries and stuff like that. I guess I just have a hard time admitting how badly off I am right now. I know people are generally happy to help, but it's still hard to ask. 

Monday I have an MRI, and tomorrow I'm going to schedule an acupuncture appointment. Exciiiting and neeeew...

Ok

This whole not being able to walk more than five minutes at a time really blows. The digestion-locking side effect of percoset is also not my favorite thing. 

Updates from the Back Front

I keep talking about my back, and the problem does presumably originate there, but really the pain is in my leg. Specifically my hip, thigh, calf, ankle and foot. (Foot bone connected to the... ankle bone...) So all my docs and ER techs and physical therapists keep talking about my back and in my head I keep correcting them over and over: my leg, my leg, you mean my leg. 

Yesterday I had my first physical therapy session. After a somewhat confusing drive over - I'd thought the office was in Verona, and in fact it was in Bloomfield (the towns go Verona, Montclair, Glenridge, Bloomfield) I filled out all the paperwork and met with the head therapist. He got the rundown of my symptoms and treatments, and when I mentioned the steroids he said, 'You mean the methyl-prednisone? The 21 pack? Yeah, I'm gonna try that too. I threw out my back in exactly the same place as you did this weekend playing golf. Man the pain is intense! Now I know what all my patients have been talking about!' 

Um.

Ok.

I let it slide, because at least NOW he's sympathetic, and met a rather beefy gentleman who was going to guide me through stuff that day. I got 20 minutes of tens unit treatment, which is patches that administer teeny tiny electric shocks to your muscles, and then some ultrasound treatment. Then I got a sheet of exermacises, and he checked off which ones to do and which ones not to do. (McKinsey: yes. Williams: no. Good to know, right?)

I'll be going three times a week for however long I need to. I tried to get some guidance on what I should and shouldn't do movement-wise in general. Their philosophy is, if something makes the pain worse, don't do it. 

So this morning I walked to my car and drove to CVS. The walk to my car was really hard. My calf was stinging and burning, and I had to go super slowly and take lots of breaks. I got in my car, and then I got right back out again and leaned for a minute. Then I got back in and drove, and it hurt, but not too badly. Then walking in CVS was ok, and driving back was ok, and then walking from my car to my apartment was better. So, it seems like once I get everything warmed up it's not making things worse to walk. This is a huge relief to me. I live for the day when I can once again walk to Raymond's and have orange ginger pancakes. (I miss you, pancakes! Don't forget me!)

How I'm Spending My Summer Vacation

• Hobbling
• Leaning
• Laying flat watching DVD's on my lap top
• Trying to read rilly good books but losing the drift
• Taking pain killers and muscle relaxants
• Talking to my awesome friends on my cellie
• Chillin' in the ER with Belle
• Attempting to bully guys with advanced medical degrees so they don't bully me
• Trying to be ok with needing help
• Drinking Gatorade (it's got electrolytes!)
• Devising plans for total world domination, as soon as my @$#!%ing back is better

blurgh

So I strained my back on Sunday night during our 30 minute half-time bout, which happened in the middle of the first -ever 60 minute men's roller derby bout. (Historic!) I skated, I stopped skating, and then all was pain and confusion. Thanks to some kind derby sisters, I and my car were driven home, and I hobbled to the doctor on Monday.

My doctor's office: three blocks from my house. Time it took me to walk there: 30 minutes. Srsly. I took very very tiny steps. In retrospect I should have called a cab, but that seemed silly, until I was halfway there and realized it wasn't silly at all. The doc gave me scrips for NSAIDs and muscle relaxants and Xrays. 

The troubling thing was how long the pain stuck around. It was waking me up - I'd take some pills, fall asleep for an hour, tops, and then wake up again. The hell? It was scary. 

I'm not known for my patience at the best of times, so this week seemed reaaaally long. I got the X rays done - wow that machine is buzzy and clanky. I spent a lot of time on my back watching Battlestar Galactica, Season 3. Ever so gradually the pain diminished. Today the doc said the X rays look fine. I scheduled a followup for next week anyway to get a referral to physical therapy. 

In conclusion, a back is a terrible thing to strain. The end.