I left the orthopedic doctor’s office after my latest follow up appointment in a RAGE. You know the feeling, your blood is boiling, your face is hot, you don’t know whether you want to scream or cry or BOTH? Prior to that appointment, I had a PLAN! And that plan was a carpet that was just pulled out from under my unstable feet!
I’ve had back pain for years. It all started because of roller derby. I won’t go into the whole story, but I will say that I got hip-hit a few too many times and hence, I have a bunch of instability in my lower back. In the beginning, the pain would come on suddenly and after a few days of chiropractic care and Motrin, I would be back to “normal”. But then, the pandemic came. I was sitting way more than ever and was really only moving my body during my twice weekly workouts on Zoom. Once the threat of catching the virus went down drastically, I said yes when my daughter asked me to try out a local gym. After my free personal training session that came with my membership, I woke up the next day barely able to walk.
After a few days, I started to realize that this time the pain was different. For one thing, it wasn’t going away. Plus, it radiated to my hips. I went to physical therapy, started getting massages, going to the chiropractor, none of which seemed to help. Finally, my doctor offered an injection, which would help for a little while and then the pain would return. After my third injection the doctor offered me something called Plasma Rich Protein (PRP) where they take your own blood, extract the plasma and inject it into your joint to help it heal itself. Unfortunately, insurance didn’t cover it and $900 later I didn’t feel any different. I had a nerve ablation where they burned the nerves. Nothing seemed to help. We moved down from the mid-low back to the low-low back and he injected my SI joints. I was finally pain free… for 2 days. We had a plan to do 2 more injections and then we were going to try the ablation of the SI joints, which brings me back to the beginning of this post. I was 2 injections deep and planned to have one more and then…. ABLATION! I could just see it now, freedom from pain, moving and working out like I used to! I was so excited! But that day at the office, he told me that the possibility of insurance covering the ablation was really low. I was CRUSHED. I left that office vowing to find a better way. Something was causing this pain and I needed to find out what it was!
A friend of mine with terrible neck pain recently started going to our local Crossfit gym to see one of the coaches. They helped him so much that he was completely pain free! I finally agreed to go and see what they had to say. Within a few minutes of our session, he pointed out some ways that I was moving that were not ideal. He gave me a handful of exercises to do and I promised myself that I was going to follow through! I’ve been going to him for 5 weeks and not only am I feeling 50% better, I am actually TAKING the Crossfit classes and doing things that I have not been able to do for years. I finally feel like an athlete again!! So, the moral of the story is, if you are feeling frustrated with your current plan of care, it doesn’t hurt to question if there are alternatives. I found mine at the local Crossfit gym from a really talented movement coach but yours may be a Corrective Movement Specialist, a Physical Therapist, an acupuncturist, a masseuse. Hang in there. I’ll be hanging on the pull up bar, rooting for you!
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