The Back Injury Story

Disc Degeneration Disease Two Blown Vertebrae Sciatic Nerve

I have received a few emails asking about my back injury so I might as well tell the story here. One of the genetic presents that I recieved from my Dad was Disc Degeneration Disease which is basically how it sounds the discs in my back tend to deteriorate at a much faster rate then normal. Before I really hurt my back I had a smaller injury so the doctor did an x-ray. All of the discs in my back were a certain color except for two or three so I assumed the small group was where the problem was but it turned out those were the good discs. Anyway back to the story.

I started skateboarding when I was eleven or twelve and started snowboarding a couple of years later. Both sports are a ton of fun and can teach you all sorts of wonderful life lessons but they are a little bit hard on the body. So I was in my early twenties and I just went down a hill and hit a small jump and landed perfectly but something in my lower spine moved. I decided that was that for the day and went home. Over the next couple of hours my left leg started to burn along the inside starting at my foot and all of the way up to my butt. I figured it was nothing and tried to ignore it. A couple of days later the pain was still there and I was at work when I tried to lift up a chair and darn near passed out. I went to the emergency room that night and it turned out if you have lower back problems that you should not take tylenol as it makes the discs swell. By this point my left leg was basically useless so A couple of days later I saw my family doctor who figured out it was a lower back injury and referred me to a back specialist. The back specialist had me go for a CAT scan and when the results came back it was not good. The L3 and L4 vertebrae in my back were bulging out and the doctor believed the sciatic nerve was caught between the two discs. The doctor said they could do back surgery but the odds were fifty fifty that it would help or it would make it worse so she suggested physical therapy until a couple of more tests could be completed.

I went to physical therapy and it was weird for I was the youngest person there by thirty years. Sometime during the first couple of weeks I had an MRI done and a strange thing happenned. During the beginning of my physical therapy the people were always pushing me to do more and lift more but when my MRI came in this all changed very quickly. My little back injury was now classified as a major back injury and now the therapists were telling me not to push it so hard. The L3 and L4 discs were completely bulged out and they almost severed the sciatic nerve hence the reason my left left could not lift more then ten pounds without me seeing red.

The doctor sent me for this test and I can not remember the name of it but I will never forget what happened. The doctor puts these metal probes in various areas of your legs and then puts electricity through them to see the difference between nerve responses in both legs. It was not a pleasant experience and hurt like hell in the good leg. Again the doctor offered surgery but I decided to keep at the physical therapy. About six months later I was able to walk without a limp and in the years that have passed I have figured out basically what to do to keep my back happy such as strong abdominal muscles and keeping my weight down.

During the nine months that I dealt with the back injury I was prescribed some heavy duty painkillers to get some back relief. The problem was (as it is with prescription mental medication) is that my body gets use to the meds very quickly so the dosage needed to be increased constantly. At one point my doctor offered me morphine and thankfully I said no but it took some time to get off the pain medication and to this day I avoid them like the plague.

Well there is the back story for the most part. On a positive note the back surgeon said I would need back surgery by the time I hit thirty but I am thirty four now thank you very much. Take care