Non Football (OR POLITICAL) things that piss you off!

[-Deborah-]

So you were able to see the tweet I had embedded above?

[dpatnod]

It does show up. Interestingly, tweets embedded in Yahoo stories no longer show up for me.

[-Deborah-]

Hmmm. Wonder why you can see them here?!

[dpatnod]

Probly cuz it's such a special place.

[Cody_Russell]

So you were able to see the tweet I had embedded above?

Yes. Interesting.. I can see Tweets posted on here.

[-Deborah-]

I had a terrible pinched nerve in my neck just over a year ago. It was so bad, my arm was numb and tingly all the way to my hand. The pain was terrible and I had great difficulty sleeping.

I'm skeptical of chiropractors, but was desperate. I found a chiropractor with a 5-star rating after 150 reviews. There were NO reviews less than 5 stars. He fixed my neck in the first week, but insisted on a three-month treatment plan -- "It took you years to get in this shape, surely you can spend three months to address the problem?" Okay, fine.

Toward the end of my three months, he mentions that he wants to work on my hip/lower back. I have faith in him at this point because of the great relief I got with my neck. He does one adjustment and suddenly I have terrible sciatica pain. :(

I've been fighting this sciatica pain now for over a year. It's prevented me from taking my daily walks with the dog/hubby.

I stopped going to the chiropractor after one or two more visits and started physical therapy. The therapy included dry needling. This stuff is AMAZING. It really lessened my symptoms, but I did not find any long-term relief with this therapy, unfortunately.

Sidenote: While doing physical therapy, they gave me a stretch to do for my neck that has basically cured my neck issues and prevent the pinched nerve from returning. I do it once a day and all is well. Hooray!

Anyway, therapy isn't working long-term for my sciatica pain. I buy a new office chair, thinking maybe that's preventing me from improving. We buy a new bed. We eventually buy a new topper for our new bed. Nothing is working. We wind up buying yet another new bed after realizing the first one is too firm. I take only Tylenol a couple times a day for some relief.

I go to a spine specialist and get an MRI. It shows all sorts of issues, including a compressed nerve. They offer surgery, injections, or therapy. I opt for the physical therapy. She taught me some stretches that never really helped. That therapy ended a few months ago. I'm not as bad as I was, but still very limited in how much I can walk or stand. I get a temporary handicap permit and request closer parking at work.

We went on vacation a couple weeks ago. The bed where we stayed was awful and we were happy to get back home. Two days after our vacation, I wake up and lay on my back on the bed and just stretch a little. I hear something pop and now all of the pain is gone! I can walk again!

I'm overjoyed but afraid that it could easily revert back. In the meantime, I'm getting more angry about the year I wasted fighting this pain. I have no doubt that chiropractor did this to me (time for another 3-month plan!). I still haven't ruined his 5-star rating, but I think it would be fair to do so.

I'm also not too happy with physical therapy not isolating what was needed to move things back into place. I visited the spine specialist who acted like it was a miraculous occurrence and offered no additional insight.

Soooo....that's what's up with me.

[CGVT]

Wow, Deb. Glad it is better now. I hope it lasts.

My wife is going through the exact same thing. The dry needling helps her neck a bunch. She has a vertebrae that is out of place and terrible sciatica pain. There is no end in sight.

[-Deborah-]

I hope it does, too! I'm sorry your wife is going through this too!! Damn. I hope she finds a way out of it somehow.

Sharing the neck stretches I do to ward off the neck issues. It's incredibly simple! This video shows it being done with a towel. The PT had me do it with a long pillowcase while I was there, but I use an exercise band for it these days. Once a day, 12-15 reps, works great for me. I'll also do the stretch anytime I have stiffness and it goes right away.

[CGVT]

Thanks, Deb. She says that she did that one at therapy, but will try doing it at home some

We went through a lot of the same "fixes" as you, new chair, bed, etc and nothing seems to help. She does not want surgery.

She works in IT and sits and stares at a computer screen all day. We have tried moving her extra monitor to the other side, but that did not help. We also think some of it is stress related. We are working to get her retired as soon as we can, but she will probably continue to work until our youngest graduates from college in two years. That is a long time to be in pain...

[-Deborah-]

It sure is. :(

[kayrone]

UGGGHHH that sucks, lady! I have had similar issues, although not nearly to that extent. Sciatica pain is the WORST - it took me a few months to work through it, but luckily I found a massage therapist who knew exactly what I mean and where to focus, and she got me over the worst of it. I still have some aches and pains if I tweak it, but nothing like it was.

A couple of years ago, the hubs started having migraines all the time out of the blue, his MD just want to prescribe pain pills, but he wanted no part of that and wanted to figure out WHY he was suddenly having migraines when he had no history of them in the past, so someone steered him to a chiropractor. Chiro solved the migraine issue within a few weeks, which turned hubs into a chiro-evangelist. I didn't have anything wrong at the time but hubs nagged the shit out of me for weeks until I finally went for my "free consultation" (my family has a history of spinal issues so it wasn't just to get hubs to STFU, although that was the primary motivator TBH) and the xrays showed some neck and lower back issues so I got on the maintenance plan too. This dude starts you off with a holistic approach that involves stretching and strength training exercises, massage, etc, so at first it was fine. But at this point it's mostly just an inconvenience, I don't know if it is actually helping me at all, but it's been so long that I'm just resigned to it.

[-Deborah-]

Right? I know chiropractic care can help a host of problems but it sure feels like a scam when they insist on a certain number of visits. Yet, if I had gone back to my chiropractor, he probably would have gotten me back into place a lot quicker than I did. Seems like that's the only option out there when something is out of place. Grrrr.

[dpatnod]

Yeah. Sux getting old.

Have to go to my brother's celebration of life on Friday.

[kayrone]

My sympathies for your loss, dpatnod. That's rough. :-(

[-Deborah-]

Yeah. Sux getting old.

Have to go to my brother's celebration of life on Friday.

Sad news. I'm sorry. :(