So you may recall about a month ago when I was constantly complaining (informing) about the fact that my back hurt really bad. It is normal for dudes in their 40's to have back problems but these were really bad. Bad enough that a guy that almost never seeks out medical treatment because he doesn't have a lot of faith in doctors, went to go see a group of doctors at the most prestigious hospital this city has in it.
I went to the doc several times and was taking every test you can imagine. I have never had an MRI before this hospital but in a few days I had 4 of them. I also had an ultrasound and a bunch of x-rays as the doctor and later a specialist were interested, or at least did a very good job of pretending that they were interested, in figuring out what is wrong with me.
They discovered herniated disks in the lumbar area of my spine, which isn't really that uncommon for people my age. It also can vary from "barely and inconvenience" to "I can't do anything" as far as how much it affects your life. I was getting to the point where it was something in the middle of those two but I did feel like it was getting worse.
Now I don't know exactly what caused this but according to a lot of things that I see online and what the doctor said that these sorts of problems can be the result of some sort of slip and fall that went untreated. Or even if it did get treated there is a good chance that it could come back and haunt you because in a situation like mine where I did fall on some slippery steps and hit my back right near my spine. Once the swelling went down I didn't really think anything of it and there was no real reason for me to go to a doctor during all of that anyway.
So over the time that I was in this particular doctor / hospital, they were kind of at a loss as to what could be wrong with me because even after the MRI's and scans and what not, it wasn't terribly evident what could be done other than to give me a bunch of pills and be told to step back on the physical activity.
Nadi is a big fan of sitting around and doing nothing. I would say that it is her speciality. I'm not like that though so when the doctor told me that I need to stop doing active things for a while I was kind of a jerk saying, "I'm not going to do that, give me drugs that actually work instead."
This is one of the things that I don't like going to doctors because of. I feel like often their cure is something that is obvious like "hey, if you don't move at all for a while, the thing that is hurting that moves will stop hurting." This is not doctor advice, this is obvious advice that cavemen would have used, we don't need medical school for this. Even though I think often doctors are over-worked and are just being lazy because "stop moving" is an easy prescription to give to anyone in pain I also believe that there is a pharmacological solution to a lot of things, but some doctors are compelled to over-prescribe pills whereas others seem to be vehemently opposed to prescribing anything.
At one point and a bit of goading from me I got the doctor convince that I am NOT going to sit on the sofa and wait this out, and she eventually prescribed me some powerful anti-inflamatories and also some steroids. Just 10 days worth.
As promised, I did not sit around a rest for 10 days but she did get me to agree that I would stay away from high-impact sports the likes of which I had been playing such as pickleball and volleyball. I still went cycling and did a bit of jogging and swimming, but that was about it.
It seems as though our compromise worked out because now here I am a couple months later and I am not taking any medication and my back feels fine. I went on a rather long job / walk yesterday of around 15,000 steps and I felt fine afterwards and feel fine now.
So the bottom line is I don't know what really happened there. I don't know if what the doctor suggested or prescribed actually did anything or not but at the end of the day I do feel better and if anything can be said about this injury I am taking when my body "talks to me" a bit more seriously than before. I suppose it is time, because I am no spring chicken anymore and speaking of young . here is a picture of when Nadi was between 2-3 years old.
I know that pickleball is all the rage right now but I don't think that this sport is nearly as safe as people are claiming it is. I think it is perceived as "safe" because it hasn't been around for very long and because most of the people playing it aren't very good at it.
we'll talk about that another time though. For now, I am just happy that I don't have back pain anymore, and am going to be careful to not have it happen again.