Pain and nociception help: My back hurts very badly. - Help.com

bay area, CA

wow, i’m sorry.

my back’s been hurting lately too, but it’s nothing like what you’ve got. still, i can… IMAGINE… how awful that must be.

is there really no kind of surgery that can fix that? and how did it happen?

can u swim?… my swim coach had that same problem and he absolutely had to swim an hour a day no matter what, but it made his pain tolerable… which made his whole life livable… can you look into swimming?

thanks.. this is a C6-7 herniation ( sixth-seventh cervical verterbra - the
disk actually) — no idea really how it happened. It started aching like crazy
one day 4 years ago and hasn’t stopped since..

thanks for the tips - swimming etc. Basically, if I raise my arm above
my neck, it starts hurting. The trouble really is a deep fierce ache
in the right shoulder-blade and neck area that never goes away..

that sounds awful :(

it also sounds a bit like what happened to me o.O maybe i should get it checked…

i know that swimming and being suspending in the water… was also part of what helped.

I hope you can find a physical therapist who can help you. I had horrible whiplash that still bothers me some and for several years was very bad… so bad sometimes i cried and im really not a wimp when it comes to pain. The more I exercise and do the exercises my therapist gave me the less pain I have… really.

The hardest part is getting to where it actually is improving instead of getting worse… I will pray for you too. Don’t give up on yourself. I almost did, am glad I didn’t.

also look into arnica montana - it is an herb that can be in cream form that may help bone healing

thanks for all the thoughts and good wishes..

sigh..

the MRI shows the disk pushing quite clearly against the nerve
root. I’ve done a lot of physical therapy — I was very strong
when the injury happened — but phy. therapy only makes it worse..

..rest seems to help a bit - but the rest of me atrophies — that
was hard to take in the beginning but I guess I’ve gotten used to it , sigh..

the main issue is the pain — i don’t really care what happens to the rest
of me , i just wish the pain would stop.. I’ve done just about everything out there..

New Radio Wave Treatment To Correct Back Disorders Offers Alternative To Drugs, Open-Spine Surgery?

http://www.bidmc.harvard.edu/sites/bi…

In San Francisco

http://www.laserspinecenter.com/

Thanks for the link — I copied some of it here for reference..

>>
New Radio Wave Treatment to Correct Back Disorders Offers Alternative to Drugs, Open-Spine Surgery
Boston–May 2002, Harvard Medical School affiliate Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center–If you are one of the estimated 1.5 million Americans who will be diagnosed this year with a contained herniated disc–also known as a ‘thrown-out back’ or ‘pinched nerve’ of the upper leg–the answer may be as familiar as your radio. Doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are using radio waves Æ the same energy that sends signals to your car radio–to gently dissolve small amounts of unwanted disc tissue and relieve the pressure often associated with lower back and upper leg pain.
For patients whose body motion is restricted by a spine disc attack and who can’t stand the prospect of a sometimes lengthy and painful convalescence, radio wave injection may be just the answer, says Joshua A. Hirsch, M.D., an interventional neuroradiologist and associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School. Virtually bloodless and exceptionally precise, Nucleoplasty radio wave injection is more like getting a vaccination or epidural steroid injection than traditional open-spine surgery.

>>

..i’ve discussed this with my doc — he doesn’t seem to think me a candidate (it
is harder to do this stuff in the neck compared to the lower back ) — i’ll
ask again..

..thanks - also saw your post on laserspinecenter.com — in general, these
procedures do better on the lower back — but they are not guaranteed and
can actually make things worse on occasion..

..prayer would be great — except the pain doesn’t stop — can’t put it
more simply than that.. you are right about the ice-pack — but that
does lose effectiveness after a while — doesn’t cure the problem sigh :) –
i.e. when the ice pack is on - you feel fine — but 20 minutes later the
pain comes back and you can’t keep doing this 24/7.. sigh..

thanks again for all thoughts / suggestions..

(((axes_y)))

I live in extreme pain too but choose to smoke pot over taking painkillers. Well other than the Tylenol 3’s but I only take 2 of them when I wake up in pain. I have degenerative disk disease. They want to fuse my back but I won’t let them ~smiles~.