herniated or bulging discs...........

[charlie_the_tuna]

any you guys ever had this condition?? i'm dealing with this now and have been for going on 6 weeks now. the pain is unbelievable. I cant even tie my own dam shoes. I feel like a helpless child. so far I've lost a month of work because of it. I went for a shot in the spine that was supposed to help but did nothing. I get spasms at night that almost bring tears to my eyes. I just read an article talking about physical therapy being bad for herniated discs.
anybody have this problem? how long did it last? the doctors I've seen both say it will get better. I cant take this anymore. when I get out of be in the morning i'm pretty much crippled for the first hour or so. I've never had back problems in my life. I don't even know how this happened.

[bradford]

Feel for ya Charlie. I know a couple people with back problems and it sure does sound like it sucks. Can't give you any other advice, wish I could.

[Destroyer]

My dad had the same thing you have CTT, and yes, it does get better over time, but the pain is bad and it's not something that's ever going to completely go away. Inversion therapy helped my dad (Hanging from his heels) but I don't know if it will help in your case. Seems not everyone benefits from it. What did your Doc say?

[spareparts]

blew my back out five years ago, it really sucks. Until you deal with chronic, consistent pain, you can't understand it. If you've got a herniated disc, you need to stay on your back and give it rest. I ate ibuprfin till it burned up my stomach, took previcid to ease my stomach and got backed up, too laxitives to free my self up. Hurt like hell taking a dump with back pain. Its a viscous cycle. Physical therapy helped me a lot, I had a good therapist the first time around. he concentrated on SI alignment. It kept coming back though and I ended up with cortisone shots, I did those for over a year, they didn't help much. Had a different physical therapist this time and it made things worse. The exercises they had me doing were making it much worse. I tried to tell that ***** it was making it worse, but she told me i was wrong and didn't know what I was talking about(she was a hard body though). I stopped going to that place By this time both my legs would go numb while walking. Went back doing what my fist PT told me to do and kept using my inversion table. The next time around It came back with a vengeance wile i was putting a water pump in a mercruser. I ended up taking a ride in the ambulance. Long story about dealing with the emergency room people, If I could have got my hands on the doctor, he would have been in a hospital bed beside me when I got thur. They finally diagnosed me with stenosis, from what I could interpret, my spinal cord was too large for the spinal column. They went in and routed out the inside of my spinal column. Since them its been much better. I have an inversion table I use from time to time, I need to do my exercises regularly and I need to loose weight. In my opinion, shots are a short term solution to get the swelling down. Get a proper diagnosis and see what surgery options are. Check around with different doctors if you're not happy with whats going on. Do your exercises and loose weight(yea, I need to do the same)

[charlie_the_tuna]

I never had back problems before. yeah, I need to lose weight. i'm not making excuses but i'm a year and a half off quitting smoking after 35 years. especially now, taking the weight off is gonna be a bear. I don't do nothin' but sit around and eat all dam day. I've heard the inversion table is a way to go. when this first happened they sent me to physical therapy and I could barely walk to my car when I was done. i'm gonna stay away from that for now and try to find a cheap inversion table. no longer taking any pills as I don't want to ruin my kidneys. this is incredible. never been this helpless/useless. the cortisone shot did absolutely nothing but set me back $500. bucks. i'm just gonna give it time, hang from my feet and strengthen my core, when I feel human again. I was just looking for some kind of time frame. 6 weeks is longer than I've had anything before.

[smokeonthewater]

I have had back problems for 15+ years....
Untreated because frankly I'm terrified to let ANYONE mess with my spine!

I believe what I have it herniated discs but I'm not certain.... In addition I fell on a boat ramp two years ago and hurt my neck bad, again, untreated....

Can't ride motorcycle more than 20 minutes now without taking a large dose of Advil and still excruciating.

Bought an inversion table last summer... Used it a few times but I found that upon turning back upright at first it was 30 seconds and became 8-10 minutes before I could get off of it...
The pain was almost unimaginable. Really scary..

I don't know exactly what was happening but it felt as if my spinal cord was getting pinched when I started switching back to supporting weight...

I strongly urge you to be careful w an inversion table.... I wouldn't go straight to steep inversion... Maybe start w 15 deg or so for a while and gradually work up.

I know eventually i won't be able to take the pain and will have to seek help but dangit I don't trust doctors.

Hopefully your story will be shorter and happier than mine.

[charlie_the_tuna]

I don't care for doctors. not that I don't trust them, I think they do the best they can, I just don't like hearing bad news. if I can get an inversion table I heard that even like 25 degrees will do some good. sh!t, I aint gonna do anything full boat at this point. wanna take it nice and easy and slowly heal this crap. first doctor I went to was in a rush. came in, told me I had a bulging disc and ran right out the door. that was it. then I looked at the report because I went to another guy and it turns out I had like 4 or 5 bad discs. haven't a clue how this happened. just keeping my fingers crossed. i'll keep you guys posted.

[yodaddy]

I had 3 bulged discs back in 2007. I spent the next 2 years doing twice a week visits to a chiropractor, alternating hot and cold packs on my spine, and sitting on one of those big exercise balls. The hot/cold therapy and ball did more good than the chiropractor. Finally went to another chiropractor in VT, and he had me back together in 2 months. My back is good now for the most part, but if I lift something too heavy (150+ lbs) I'll get the sciatica going for a few days.

I feel for you. Hope you get well soon.