Back Pain

On the long weekend, my wife and I began the long process of recovery from our recent basement sewage flood. Servicemaster had finished most of its efforts to clean, repair, and recover the sheetrock, fiberglass insulation, etc., and had moved our vacated items back into the basement.

I went down on Sunday evening to assess the plan of action for Monday (my wife was away visiting some friends). As often happens, I started to move a little something, which led to moving a little something more, and next thing I knew, I had been down there for 90 minutes or more and had cleared a whole area. As one final act, I decided to lift a large bag filled with bathroom mats onto a spot in the downstairs closet. When I did, I felt a very tiny "pop" in my lower back and nearly fell to my knees from the pain that suddenly swept from my back through my legs.

I managed to hobble my way upstairs, grab the heating pad, and sit. I waited patiently for my wife to get home and didn't do much moving. She had to help me stand up and move into the bedroom that evening, as the pain was growing pretty bad.

Monday (the holiday) I could barely move. Any excess weight on my back at all, from trying to walk, standing up, and even some positions of sitting, caused intense pain. Any twisting and leaning also caused the pain. So Monday I spent most of the day in my comfy chair. I tried not to do much, rest it as much as I could, and withstand the pain. I finally took two Advil -- not even a dent in the pain. I then took a Motrin -- didn't even touch the pain. My wife went and spoke with a pharmacist an was given some Robaxin -- nothing, nada, zilch.

That night was horrible. I was in so much pain. On a scale of 1-10, it was 10. It was the most pain I have ever felt. At one point during the night, I had to use the bathroom. Even with my wife's help, I only made it about four small steps before the pain completely overwhelmed me. It was so intense that my entire body was sweating from those four steps enough that my sleeping attire was drenched through in seconds. I would have crumpled to my knees had my wife not been holding on to me for dear life. I was crying from the pain and starting to hyperventilate. Right then and there, we probably should have called an ambulance and gone to the ER. Instead, I peed into a cup my wife brought me and she folded me back into bed. I finally passed out for a couple of hours from about 5am to about 7:30am.

Tuesday morning we spoke with my mother in law (MIL), who is a nurse, and we all agreed I should go to either the ER or Urgent Care (UC). My MIL came down to help get me there, and off we went.

The UC had me go straight back to a stretcher. Soon enough, the doctor came. He jabbed a knuckle into my spine and didn't care how much he made me jump. He pronounced that I couldn't possibly have done anything structural to my body with what I described happening. He was going to give me a shot and a script and send me home. I had to ask him for an x-ray. When he got the x-ray back, he seemed surprised by the amount of spasm shown in them (it was straightening my spine). His goal seemed to be to get rid of me and make me my family doctor's problem, so he wrote a script for Percocet, a script for four days of bed rest, and sent me home.

What bothered me the most about this visit is that the doctor didn't want to look me in the eye, didn't want to do what, to me, seems like the bare minimum for someone presenting with unexplained and intense back pain (x-rays and an MRI), and didn't want to find the underlying cause. He just wanted me out of there. Not one person in the UC even glanced at my Medical Alert bracelet, no one seemed willing to pay attention to the medications I am on or care about the chronic conditions I have -- one of which is Rheumatoid Arthritis which, you know, just might be causing swelling in my spine? At the bare minimum, to find the source of the problem, it seems like a doctor should insist on an x-ray (for problems that could be detected there) and an MRI (for all the other problems that do not show up on x-ray or physical exam). Yet this doctor didn't want to do either and had to be persuaded to give me the x-ray!

Today is Thursday. I have been taking the Percocet, which makes me a bit loopy and groggy. It does not do much for the pain, but it makes me functionally able to move around, so I guess that is okay. I am staying off of it as much as I can and trying not to move around a great deal, but you use your back for everything.

Over the last few days, I have learned the pain is primarily on the right side of my spine and down my right leg. If I keep most of my weight off of that side of the body, the pain is much less than when using both legs or when I have to put weight on the right side (like while getting dressed, walking, etc.). I am spending most of my day in my comfy chair or in bed.

We also made a follow-up appointment with my GP. At that appointment, I am going to insist on an MRI, as a number of friends and colleagues have said that their bulging, herniated, or degenerating discs presented like my pain at first and it took weeks, months, and even years before they got an MRI and found the real problem and started to address it. And, since most of these types of issues do not show up via a physical exam nor on an x-ray, the MRI is the only way to find it. I have enough other issues that I will not stand for this to linger; if I need surgery or specialized treatment to fix this problem, I want to get to it now.

As we have our two cords of wood coming, more work in the basement, work coming for our living room and porch, and the rainy season almost upon us, I need to get healthy enough to start working again soon. But, being my back, I also don't want to screw it up in a permanent or chronic way. It will be a balancing act. Luckily, I have good friends who can likely help with the wood and furniture moving that will be needed.