To Eva
Hi Eva: I know what you are going through. I also injured my neck in a car accident 10 years ago. I had a great neurosurgeon who said that either I'll be able to live with it or come to a time when I'll be begging for surgery. Well, I tried to deal with it and worked four of the past years. The rest of the time I've been on SSD. I'm 35 yrs. old. Oh, and I hope that your appt. w/ your surgeon went well since my birthday is March 10. Yes, the pain in unbearable and I'm taking alot of meds. I also have EBV, CFS and a chronic anxiety and panic disorder. I finally have surgery for c5-c6 scheduled for Sept. I'm not sure that I even want to do it. It sounds very risky. I used to have three herniations but two of them seemed to heal ok on their own. This one is an "immense herniation" according to my Dr. The bad thing is that it's not my disc impinging my spinal cord but my vertebrae. I know how bad the pain and numbness can get. And those very painful "muscle spasms" that you have in your neck, shoulder and back are probably "trigger points". These are worse than spasms. The way you can tell if they are trigger points is if you press on them they will produce radiating pain as opposed to spasms which seem to stay contained to the spasm spot. Two things have helped me put off the surgery for so long: 1). I spent alot of time in the pool stretching and exercising. You shouldn't swim laps or do any movements that have you doing an overhead stroke. I have a thing called an "Aqua Jogger". It allows you to remain upright in deep water with only your head above water. It is such a wonderful feeling to be completely weightless. No strain or pain on your joints. 2). The second thing is to push out those trigger points. You will not believe how much better you'll feel. It hurts when you push the knots out but it's worth it. Alot of times by pushing them out I can get rid of the numbness in my arms. I believe the reason for this is that the muscles contract and entrap your nerve which will affect the pain. I guess it helps that my ex-boyfriend is in pain management! LOL. Remember if you want to push these horrible muscle trigger points out you need to press hard on the spot and breathe deeply. It will hurt like hell but then all of the sudden you feel the knot release. It is the strangest feeling. I use a device called a "jacknobber" to push them out. It looks like a child's giant jack. Alot of times I position two of the wooden balls under my back and lay on it on the floor until the muscles relax. A golfball will also work. Once you feel the release once the knot is broken up you will realize that the pain is worth it. I've also made this homemade thing with two tennis balls inside a sport sock. I tied the two balls tightly together and use it to lie on it and make my way up and down my spine. I used to see a wonderful chiropractor but had to stop after the bad herniation. The tennis balls gently adjusts your back as you move the balls up and down. I also tried pain management for six years. Every two weeks I would go and have 15 needles inserted into my head, neck and back. The Dr. would have to move the needle around to break up the knot. It hurt like hell. Then I would have two occipital nerve blocks, a sacroiliac joint injection and then an epidural. I had no long-term help with this so I stopped going with my Dr. agreeing. I hope that you can take care of your problem without surgery. I hope that I was able to help you in some way. If you'd like, you can email me sklein310@aol.com. Take Care, Sonia