The Greek Goddess of Pain: Sciatica

[reisen55]

I have new companion in life, one most terrible. Sciatica. I recommend this for people on the level of Hitler and Stalin. It is awful. Continual low bone and leg ache all day and, at night ... wow. Up at 1:30 and 4:30 walking and trying to rid the pain of it all. Terrible thing. Making my life a living hell. Or a sleeping one, whatever that was.

[Nessie]

Yikes!

I am familiar with the condition. I have one close family member who suffered from this for a couple years and yes, I remember that he had pain in one leg, although the problem actually was in his back.

It wasn't cured as such...it just went away by itself. He is fine today. It was nasty while it lasted, though.

I hope very much that you too won't have it for long.

Nessie

[joedeep130535]

Hi Reisen I used to suffer just as you do Don't grin & bear it -Go to a Chiropracter (no i'm not one) It will cost you a bit-$50 per treatment in UK-but it should sort out the trouble & prevent it coming back as badly as before When I was at my worst I even gave up sinking but now-----

[Tim Kelly]

That's nothing! Wait till you meet her first cousin; Plantar Fasciitis!

[Duncan Edwards]

That's nothing! Wait till you meet her first cousin; Plantar Fasciitis!

I know her very well. Just to prove she was no master of me I ignored her torments and toughed my way to a stress fracture. Not to be beaten I ignored the stress fracture she gave me and kept going until it got unstressed by breaking completely! Am I smart or what? But wait! There's even more stupid in this story. I ignored the break for a week (But I did stop running) and kept telling myself that with enough asprin I would be fine. I finally went to a walk-in clinic and was shown an X-ray to prove to my idiot self that my third metatarsal distal was indeed snapped like a chicken bone.

I felt like a fool but I was wrong. I showed the X-ray to my father-in-law, a doctor, and he told me I was not a fool but a complete effin' idiot. I felt much better after my wife confirmed his diagnosis and agreed that she felt I was indeed not a fool but a complete effin' idiot as well.

But like any good infomercial -- "Wait! There's more!"

Yes, I then went to see a real orthopedist, one of the best in town. After a brief look at the x-ray he agreed too that I was an effin' idiot. I was due to visit the central American nation of Honduras in about two weeks and asked him what I should do. The good doctor told me to lace my boots up real tight and "try to stay below my pain threshold." I don't know if you have ever been there but the entire country goes uphill and is covered by fist sized rocks. Not the best place to heal a broken foot. A serious runner will tell you that pain is just weakness leaving the body. I left a lot of weakness down there.

[kham]

Thats good hockey-player type pain tolerance Dunc, but you really should not go for that on a regular basis

[Nessie]

That's nothing! Wait till you meet her first cousin; Plantar Fasciitis!

In the Nessie clan, The Sciatica Guy is married to The Plantar Fasciitis Lady.

Unlike Duncan, she listened to the doctor. I think she had some special shoe implant or something for awhile. She never says it hurts any more, so it must be okay. She always wears good shoes. She gets around fine.

Duncan, I send you sympathy, good vibes, sincere wishes for a complete recovery and a virtual mud massage...and new programming for the computer chips in your brain:

Pain is bad. Pain hurts. Pain is to be avoided. Years from now, when you're on your deathbed, you won't be saying to yourself, "Gee, I wish I'd have spent more time feeling pain."

And when that day comes, which thankfully shouldn't be for a long, long time...remember...a real man isn't afraid to demand morphine.

Nessie

[Duncan Edwards]

Thats good hockey-player type pain tolerance Dunc, but you really should not go for that on a regular basis

Thanks. I've opted out of the pain thing since then.

In the Nessie clan, The Sciatica Guy is married to The Plantar Fasciitis Lady.

I've never met the Sciatica guy and I hope I never do. Reisen doesn't sound like he's having much fun at all.

And when that day comes, which thankfully shouldn't be for a long, long time...remember...a real man isn't afraid to demand morphine

Since I don't drink I guess that will have to do the trick.

Reisen, they give you any good dope for this thing?

[Boggy Man]

I am no stranger to pain either. Back in the 80's, I shoveled snow too vigorously and bent my back too much, and wound up with such horrible lower back pain, which got progressively worse each day, for several days. It took many, many months to recover (I think it was over a year), and during the summer, it impacted my bikerides, because whenever I went up a steep hill, my back would suddenly start to get weak, and my legs would lose their strength as well. But, a rest for only a minute, and I felt better, and could resume until the weakness in my back built up again. I had lower backpain with a pinching tailbone, and pain shooting into my legs. But, I have been more careful with my back (most times), and I haven't had much back trouble for years, or nothing that lasted longer than a few days.

I had also suffered pain from an injury on the side of one of my knees, which I felt was from standing up straight while picking weeds close to the ground, which was probably forcing my knees to bend in the wrong direction. The pain never started until my biking, and I thought that a bit more exercise would work the problem out, but it instead got worse. It was in the joint on the top of my fibula. Then, I was limping for a week or more, and was unable to bike up steep hills too much, which impacted my bikerides. I would try and go biking, but after a few hours, the knee would start to click, first painlessly, then suddenly a sharp pain would hit me like a shock, and then things would go downhill, with me trying to use my other leg for much of the pedaling. I would then curse each climb, and be relieved at each descent. But, because of that, I finally decided to explore a new area that was in a relatively lower elevation with fewer climbs, namely the areas around Harris Creek. On my second trip, when I stopped to take in the view of the valley at a cliffside, I looked down, and that was when I first discovered the slide, where I have sunk into every spring ever since! It took a number of years for that knee pain to disappear, but it finally did, and I was able to bike with more leg power once again.

No sooner than my leg got better, than when during a camping trip in early September (forgot the year), I was on another bikeride, and got caught in a thunderstorm. The dirt road had a stream running down it, so I had to wait for the rain to stop before proceeding back to camp. While standing, waiting my my bike, I was so chilled, that I was shivering, and standing with my legs straight and rigid, and shaking. Then, "click"! My other knee had made an audible click in the same spot the first knee did when my knee pain had begun. Sure enough, after that, whenever I tried doing biking, the other knee was getting the same pain that my first knee had, so then, what used to be my bad knee was better, and was used to be my good knee was now the bad one, and I had to suffer for a number of years, trying not to put too much force on that knee, until it finally started to improve.

But wait! My problems weren't over yet! I was very happy to have both of my knees feeling better, and because of that, I finally biked up one road that I hadn't been up in years because it was such a long, steep climb. But finally, I was ready for it! So, I made it up to the top, and noticed only a tiny bit of minor feeling in that knee. I was really glad that I was no longer being held back by pain! Then, I turned onto a sideroad to check out a lake that might have had mud exposed around it, although that area was risky. There were some sticks/branches in the middle of a wide area around the entrance to the sideroad. I started to bike through them, originally planning on going right over them. But, at the last second, just as I was coming on top of the biggest ones, I decided to instead walk my bike over. So, I slammed my right foot on the ground, only to discover that there was a branch right there, which caught the front of my foot, causing that part to snap upwards!

I was in excruciating pain around the ball of my right foot, by my large toe! It swelled right up, and I wondered if I had torn the joint(s) in the ball of my foot(or broke a bone there, in the proximity of my large toe)! I continued on with my bikeride, and the soreness and aching stuck with me all summer, but started to finally improve after a few months. Come autumn, it finally felt better, and my foot felt normal! But then, I had to run up the stairs in the house, and my right foot, which had finally felt it had healed, slipped off one step, and slammed onto the next one down. Once again, I was in extreme pain. But, this time, instead of aching and soreness, this pain was an intense stinging pain! After that, the pain no longer wanted to go away, and I would have to keep as much weight off it as possible. Finally, after a certain amount of time with me trying to be light as a feather on my right foot, the pain would subside. But, each time it felt like the pain was going down, I would just for a split second forget about it and put too much pressure on it, or I would accidentally slip on ice, or something else always happened that caused the pain to return again, and I would have to start over. Months later, I got sooo close to it being better, but then spent a day shopping, with the pain starting to return and getting worse, setting me back again! When I had finally gotten it x-rayed, the doctor told me that either I had a degenerative condition in that foot, or I had a fracture that was healing, which verified what I had suspected. I didn't want to go see the doctor when it first started, because I was worried that I would have to wear a foot cast or something, and miss out on a summer of adventures. The doctor prescribed some anti-inflammatory medication, and it worked well to take care of the pain. I also found out that the left side of my right foot, beside the ball, was extremely sensitive to anything arousing. If I so much as thought about quicksand or deep mud, then my foot would start to hurt worse, and then ease when I blanked things out. It was strange, since it was only things that aroused certain feelings in me that would trigger the pain! But, after time, the foot pain finally eased, but it caused me to delay my first bikeride, which was normally in early April, to some time around mid-June. But, at least I was finally able to function, and do things again. My foot stayed a bit sensitive, but continued to improve.

But, that wasn't the end of my world of pain! When my foot finally recovered to the point where I could actually be active again, when I went to my Harris Creek slide area and was playing in some thick quicksilt, I managed to fight my intense buoyancy in that stuff to work myself down to my shoulders, with the help of a stiffer upper layer! But, I seem to have a vague recollection hearing something click in my shoulder while straining to pull myself down. Didn't know for certain, but it was afterwards that I began to notice that my right shoulder was sore, and then the soreness got progressively worse! It got so bad, that I could hardly move my right arm without intense pain, which got worse the more I moved it. So, for a very long time, I had to try not using my right arm, which was a bit of a challenge. I once again got the doctor to prescribe anti-inflammatory medication again, which helped. It took many months, or over a year or more for it to finally get better.

Since then, my right arm lost some of its flexibility to some degree (varies), in terms of easily reaching my right shoulder blade on my back. My right foot is great, although it can feel sore at times, aching at times, but no longer a problem. My knees had been okay, until the late summer of 2008, when I had over a month of cold weather, and once that long summertime break in my bikerides was over, my first bikeride resulted in one of my knees getting the pain back again! It started in my main knee joint, but when I changed my seat height to try remedying that, I was relieved to see that the main knee joint felt better! But then, the pain switched over to the top of my fibula, again! But, after that time, I haven't had it since, so far.

I have had pain in my wrists, and a bad sprain in my left ankle, and wonder what new injury will I sustain in the future to put me back in pain again for months, since most have gotten better, although my knee pain seems to be something that is always hanging over my head, waiting for me to do the wrong thing to make it return again. I gave my injuries a name - shoe-drop injuries, since once I get over one injury, another "shoe drops", and I have to go through the pain all over again in another part of my body, and wait for it to heal.




Reisen, I hope that you find an effecive treatment, and make a complete recovery. I was prescribed Diclofenac (anti-inflammatory) for my pain, and Misoprostol to prevent stomach problems from the anti-inflammatory. I wonder if that could help you.

[reisen55]

THANK YOU for so many responses. This is the nastiest bout with something bad I have ever had - EVER and tonight I am hoping that Tylenol PM will do the trick, at least let me sleep.

One interesting aspect of this thread as it related to quicksand and sinking is that we also all have incurred damage whenever sinking. There is no greater joy that pulling a foot out and finding, amidst the brown mud, a bit growing stain of RED indicative that you've stepped on something really bad.

Last year I backed my car out of a private parking spot in the wood and a cast iron pipe went right into my bumper, punched a nice little hole in it too. Great.

But all of you here are caring, wonderful people which is what makes this discussion board, in total, such a great place.