Earlier this month, I saw a physiatrist about my back/leg injury. I can’t say that I was too impressed with him since I found him dismissive and rushed. And he told me to exercise – somehow the “I noticed this sharp pain in my leg when I was RUNNING” and “I try to workout everyday” didn’t register with him. He did order an MRI of my lumbar spine, which revealed that three of my discs are mildly herniated. My L5 disc (the one at the bottom of my spine and the one most people injure) is off to the left side, which is pinching my sciatic nerve (hence the sharp pain in my left leg when I run and the constant tingling in my left leg). I’m not sure if the other two discs are of much concern (perhaps I would know had he spent longer than 5 minutes reviewing my MRI with me) and I’m not sure that they’re causing any of the off and on throbbing pain in my lower back (apparently you could have bulging discs in your back and not even have any symptoms). He prescribed physical therapy for a couple of months and did manage to refer me to an awesome physical therapy place.
The physical therapy is pretty time consuming, which has been stressful. The PT appointments range from 1.5 to 2.5 hours, twice a week (and the only reason they’ve been 1.5 hours is because I’ve had to rush them because I needed to get back to work!). I also have to do some stretching and strengthening exercises at home and those tend to take me about one to two hours to do. The PT place is really nice, down the street from my office, and seems to have a very sports medicine approach (which I especially appreciate). They’re a million times better than the first PT I had tried way back in June. They did a very thorough evaluation of my condition during the first visit and seem to always work with how I’m feeling that day. There have been a few times during the past couple of weeks where things we did in PT flared up my back or leg and when that’s happened, we’ve adjusted my exercises. When that happened with the last PT, she seemed to always blame me instead of actually taking responsibility for her treatment (one time she was convinced that I had been crossing my legs at work hence causing more tingling in my leg, which is funny because I NEVER cross my legs). Given the time commitment, I’m really hoping that the PT will work but it is hard to say since I’ve yet to see any improvement.
Aside from the amount of time I’m spending on physical therapy, I’ve also been pretty frustrated with the limitations that have been put on my exercise. I can’t run. I can’t ride a bike. I can’t do spinning or kick boxing. I can’t go on a strenuous hike (I can go hiking as long as the trail is pretty flat, which sort of defeats the purpose of hiking). I can do the elliptical, stairmaster (although I can’t seem to do it for longer than 15 minutes since the sharp pain in my leg starts after about 20 minutes), stationary bike, swim, and walk (I’m not so sure about the walking since it does seem to cause the same type of pain as running). I haven’t been doing any resistance training since I don’t really have the time to do it anymore and it also seems to flare up the pain in my back.
As I’ve mentioned before, this injury has been really hard on me. I can’t do the activities that I really enjoy and I can’t seem to lose any more weight without those strenuous activities. I came to the conclusion last week that I may just have to focus on maintaining the 65 pounds I’ve lost so far and healing my back/leg. Even though I know maintaining my weight loss during an injury is a pretty big deal, it is still pretty hard for me to accept that that may be as much as I can do right now.
I’ve been spending some time this summer (and by time I mean a few nights in June and a total hiatus in July) writing some reflective essays. I’ve always dreamed of writing a book and I’m hoping to eventually compile the essays into a manuscript. I have no idea if my work is good enough to be published (or if anyone would be remotely interested in reading my writing- given the popularity of this blog, I’m not holding my breath for a bestseller), but I think I would be satisfied with even just making something and getting it made into a book using a site like Lulu or Blurb. As I was writing tonight, I was thinking that it may be fun (and productive) to share some of my work and get some constructive criticism on it. Of course I’m not ready to share any of it with the entire world. When the right time comes, I may post a few snippets here as private posts. If you think you might be interested in reading these snippets, feel free to leave a comment on this post and I’ll eventually email you a password.
As much as I like the chiropractor I’ve been seeing the past few weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that chiropractic care does not seem to be healing my leg injury. The chiropractor’s adjustments have been very helpful in temporarily healing my back, although it seems that any wrong move brings back the back pain (e.g. a resistance training workout on Sunday meant that my lower back was throbbing most of yesterday). This has led me to believe that there is some underlying issue that is not being solved. I have no idea if my back issues are related to my leg but it does appear to be a possibility.
I have an appointment tomorrow morning with a physiatrist. I’ve never heard of the field so I really have no idea what to expect – this is just the next step that my doctor outlined (if seeing a chiropractor didn’t help).
So this new specialist will be medical person #4 that I’ve seen to try to solve this problem (first my doctor, then the physical therapist, then the chiropractor). I’m really really really hoping that this guy knows what he’s doing, takes my issue seriously, accurately diagnoses it, comes up with a concrete treatment plan, gives me a solid time line for recovery, and finally heals my pesky leg! But given my track record so far, I’m trying not to get my hopes up. If he ends up being a jerk (an unfortunate reality in my experiences with doctors – likely due to my weight and their preconceived notions about what that means about me) or doesn’t figure out how to heal my injury, I’m giving up on my doctor’s plan for healing this injury. I’m now thinking my next steps after this guy will be to see somebody in sports medicine at PAMF or Stanford. I’ll probably try PAMF first since my old doctor used to be there and I’ve seen specialists there (and I really have no idea how easy/hard it would be to see somebody at Stanford and if I’d need a referral).
In so many ways, this experience has led me to objectively question my doctor’s judgment, whom I only started seeing last fall (after an awful experience with the doctor I had for a couple of years at PAMF). I really don’t want to switch doctors yet again but I’m having a hard time justifying seeing a doctor who is out of network (meaning I pay some out of pocket costs and have to file all the messy insurance paperwork myself) when she can’t help me quickly and efficiently heal an injury. It sucks because I really liked her – she seemed very thorough, personable, smart, patient, caring, and encouraging. But none of that really matters right now – I just want somebody to help me get back to my normal active self. Aside from the physical pain, this has been an emotionally devastating experience for me. I really miss hiking and running. And I miss feeling so great about myself. :( I wish I can find a specialist who really gets how important this is for me.
