Physical Therapy

In my last post, I raved about Dr Schroder and the new drug regimen. I forgot to mention that on Thursday morning, I had a PT appointment with Jaime. We talked about how I had been going for four weeks with no improvement, and she said that she would try one more thing -- and if it did not work, I needed to go see a real back doctor and get some guidance on what to do.

That one last thing she tried worked. It worked great. I think that probably half of all the improvement that I attributed to the new drugs was actually Jaime's work. She did something to my hip flexors, and it's like the disc stopped bulging, because the pain just went away. (The hip flexors are comprised of my old friend the psoas muscle and the iliacus muscle, and they make it possible for you to flex your hips.)

The pain went away during the day, but came back at night. That's where the new drugs helped. They took away the pain so that I could finally sleep again.

Whatever Jaime did was temporary, though. (To be expected,) The pain started creeping back, little by little, starting on Saturday night. It got bad this morning, and I mean bad. So, that is six days after Jaime worked on me.

Luckily, I got a PT appointment today with someone else (because Jaime is on vacation). The PT today was great, but why am I awake at 2:00AM?  I woke up with pain down near my ankle, on the outside of my leg. It feels like I sprained that ankle really bad, but I didn't. It's just nerve pain from the bulging disc. So whatever the PT did today, she didn't accomplish what Jaime did.  Darn.  I see Jaime first thing on Tuesday morning, six days from now.

In about twelve hours, I go for a massage with Martha at the physical therapy office. Two weeks ago, I had a massage with Martha, and all the pain went away -- but only for six hours. Those were blissful six hours! So I am hoping for at least that much relief this time.

Now what? I am sitting in my office, in pain, in the middle of the night. But I am not all freaked out, and I am not going to cry. I have had too much success lately. I am not without hope.

Both William and Jeff mentioned that they are awake at night a lot, and that I ought to ping them for company in these dark hours. Maybe I'll just update my facebook status and see what happens.