mountainpass said:
Jeff I don't want to go off-topic but have you tried riding a bicycle to help your back?
You know what? That's it! I'll just get on a bicycle and will cure my degenerative disk disease and my back will actually start to rebuild all of the disks that have gone bad. Which, the count from the last doctors visit, is 19 bad disks, 2 good disks, and 2 replaced and fused disks. I've lived three years in agonizing pain before my first back surgery. Excersizing doesn't help to rehydrate disks, it builds muscles. Do you people actually think that I haven't tried every avenue possible before taking this sh*t? I've been through physical therapy, back alignment, excersizing, surgery, massages, painful injections, and patches, among countless others. I even tried closing my eyes really tight, taking a deep breath, and trying to forget about it while simutaniously exhaling and rubbing my ear lobes. All of you also have to remember that doctors don't hand out medicine like this without a patient actually having the need for it. They don't go through with multiple surgeries without there being an actual condition. I'm 27, do you really think that they would put me on this stuff just because I liked the way it made me feal? You think I don't know what it does to my body? My choice is to deal with the possibility of side effects later down the road and live a normal life now, or live a shitty painfull life and watch the world go by from my bedroom window. The pain I go through isn't the "I stubbed my toe pain", it is pure hell. If you want to know what it feals like here is what you do: get someone to run knives up your back while also taking a bench grinder to your bare bone. Then I want you to ball yourselves up and get placed into a lunchbox for 24 hours. And that may give you a little bit of a prelude as to what I go through on a daily basis. Oh and did I mention that I just found out that I need another surgery performed on my thorasic spine. And in this one, they will actually open my ribcage to get through to the disks that need to be replaced. Oh, and a cartiologist also has to be on hand to aid in the surgery because it's so close to my heart. And I thought that the six incisions on my lower back and the 8" incision on my stomach from my first surgery was bad enough. I'm so glad that I have a new game plan though, I'm going to "ride a bike" to overcome all of this. Yippee it's so much more simple that way. I'm pretty sure that if something as mundane as riding a bike was the answer to my degenerative disk disease and rheumatoid arthritis that somewhere along the way my doctors would have suggested it over an operation. But who would have thought...
If any of you have ever broken a bone or had a migraine did you go excersize or try stretching? It isn't a mental need. It may be hard for y'all to get your heads wrapped around this concept, but I actually have deteriorated disks in my back. I have nerves that get pressed on that cause my legs to drop out from under me, and pain to the point that I can't get out of bed. This is no mental need, it is a physical one. Oh and by the way, I do work out. The only reason I can manage to do so is because I am prescibed medicine, by my doctor, that manages my pain so that I may live a "normal" life just like those of you who do not have to deal with this condition. Again, excersizing works your muscles, not your bones.
I have a beautiful wife and four children (including one with special needs) that I love to live my life with. Without pain management I can not do everday activities that many of you take for granted such as driving, playing with my children, or anything that you would require not laying in bed. Thanks for your "concern" but you have no idea of the challenges that I go through every day. And until you do, don't shake your fingers at me in disapproval.
