Telescope Reviews: Not quite up to par these days

I don't usually talk about my own problems, but I thought I'd mention to all of you what's been going on behind the scenes with me lately.

I've now been out of work for two weeks as of Tuesday. I leaned over the wrong way at work one afternoon and turned nearly white with pain. I was stuck in one position for several minutes before anyone could even move me to sit me down. Literally, I was stunned and hurting severely. So I left work and went home. My first thoughts were this is just another misalignment of my low back which I've dealt with for years.

Now a bit of some history. I've had some back problems for many many years. Usually it's a rotated sacrum, which in turn pinches the sciatic nerve. A lot of different things can set it off, usually motions that are twisting, like raking leaves, shovling snow, or lifting and twisting my body trunk rather than turning my entire body. So, all from a hypermobile sacrum, I get low back pain, hip pain, front leg pain, leg muscle soreness and leg numbness. In the past, lots of Ibuprofen and several sessions with the PT gets me over the worst of it and I get nearly back to normal in 3-4 weeks.

Well, things have changed. Two weeks ago I was in such sever pain that I couldn't get up off the couch to walk 15 ft to go to the bathroom. The only way I could lie down and keep still for 20-25 minutes for an MRI was to take a double dose of percocets.

Most of the pain now has moved out of the low back and is now radiated around my hip and down into my knee, but that pain keeps me up most of the night, even with the percocets. I haven't slept more than 2 hours continuous and probably not more than 4 hours a night at any time in the last two weeks.

MRI results show that I have tears in two disks. In addition to the disk tears, there is a tube or tunnel that the nerve goes thru where the tube is narrowed or squeezed tight. This is causing pressure on the nerve, (sciatic I presume) and this is related to the transfer of pain down the legs.

So after some discussion, I (we, doctor and I) have decided on a course of action. Considering my long history of this type of problem, I don't anticipate that it's going to be a simple remedy. Doc agrees with me. From here, I'll see a nuerologist, get reassessed, with likely action that I'll need to get cut to repair or remove the offending disk material. I've heard some good reports from some people that have had similar procedures. Sort of like orthoscopic surgery.

I've spent half my lifetime living with some kind of back pain. But never before have I been so totally incapacitated by it. I've never been off work for two weeks in my life. At this point all i want to do is get to a point where I'm without pain and can return to at least some sort of normal life. I'd be happy to sleep thru the night.

So while it may appear I'm around a lot lately, I'm not all here, and my involvement may sometimes be diminished. I haven't been outside to even look up in over two weeks now. Progress has slowed on major projects and I sometimes open threads and read them and just close them, rather than get involved in discussions. While you may be waiting in anxious anticipation for an answer to a question you pose in a thread, I'm waiting in anxious anticipation for the next dose of pain killers.

In due course, I hope to be operating at full throttle again, but it could be a while. So bear with me.

edz

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Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards.
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