I’m laying on the couch all propped up with pillows with a heating pad behind me. I took an mmj edible and a prescription NSAID.
My back is a bitch. My spine problems are acting up. I can just hear L4 and L5 screaming. Sometimes it’s like needles poking inside or sometimes an intense ache or a feeling of extreme tightness or it can be something that feels like a great deal of pressure. It occurs to me that I should check out things specifically for lumbar support.
Low back pain is the most common medical ailment. That’s what a doctor told me when I saw him a few years ago, for….low back pain. He told me to take Ibuprofen. If he had paid a little more attention, maybe he would have been able to see that I needed more than to just take Ibuprofen. I’m sure he was right about his statistic, but he never even asked questions about my pain or any specifics. Doctors probably see a few people a day who say they have low back pain. I can see how they have an automatic answer for the problem, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling some measure of bitterness
I got the feeling that he thought all the low back potential patients were drug seekers. I have to admit that I would have been glad if he had given me painkillers but that’s not why I went to see him and I didn’t ask for them.
ANYWAY, lol, I didn’t go to the movies this week because there was nothing to see. I was very disappointed; I love going to the movies, it’s such a treat! Maybe if I have a couple of weeks (there’s nothing good showing this week either) without going, it will keep it a treat. Wow, though–July and August are going to be fab movie months!
Netflix has become a really close friend. I think most chronically ill people would agree. I’ve been having a fibromyagia flare, a spinal stenosis flare, and my newly coined term, a depression flare. So I’ve been watching anything that seems mildly interesting.
I was able to keep creating through everything. That’s a sanity saver. I painted every day! Lately I am using my Japanese watercolors on watercolor paper. For the last two years when I painted with watercolors, which was a lot, I used Yupo, a synthetic paper that isn’t pourous.
I need to start working in my watercolor journal with watercolor pens again. It turned out that I liked the first set of those pens, which I bought spontaneously when I was in the art store for some paint, enough to get another set a couple of weeks ago. I’m going to finish this watercolor journal and get another. I like making these as epic gifts or to sell.
I’m on a plateau in my weightloss journey. I’m mostly 57 pounds (26kg) down but right now I’m going up a pound or two and down a pound or two. I’m eating sparsely to try to getting back to losing weight. Basically I’m maintaining my weight which is enough for me to feel ok, in the short term.
Saying how much I have lost and that there is more to go, is really really hard because saying that shows that I was pretty damn big and I’m not small in the least now. I’ve never said that on the interwebz before.
That’s enough for now.
Happy weekend!
adventures in existence 
i understand your pain, having three herniated lower lumbars. I found your site via your comment on Cher’s website. Be well!
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Hi john! Thanks for following! I really appreciate you conern and support!
How did the discs get herniated? Do you take meds for pain? I hope you’re having a low pain day!!
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Hi Ruthie, your welcome! It’s a combo of 20+ years of doing yard maintenance with was years of being pounded by a lawn mower, weed whipping, then a slip and fall incident while at home. It comes and goes really, been pain free for a month or so now but I have to be very careful with lifting things, slipping or twisting. Even stretching the wrong way will trigger the pain. I have a cane and a disabled parking permit from all of this. tHANK gOD FOR THE GOOD DAYS! oops. No pain meds, meds are for my BP and type 2 diabetes! Hope your pain free today!
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Can you get workman’s comp for that? Probably not if there was no specific injury, it happened over time.
I have a handicapped parking placard and I walk with a cane!! They are both vital to me being able to leave the house.
That’s great that you get really good long time free from pain! I’m a type I diabetic. We have in common!
Do you have a partner or a caregiver that helps?
I’m afraid I never have pain free days but I do have days that are lots better than others.
Where do you live? I’m in northern California.
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Hi! No need for workman’s comp, I am semi-retired and have a regular monthly income.
When my back does go out, the pain is excruciating! It drops me to the floor, then I crawl to the couch or somewhere to sit and wait for it to settle just enough to move again. Out comes the cane.
So we are both diabetic and suffer back pain! Lovely isn’t it! I wish you could have pain free days Ruthie. I have nobody now. I am from Michigan, but moved to Las Vegas four years ago with my now ex wife. So, I am totally alone here but have learned to handle it very well.
But still there are those expected days when it’s a bit tough. All of my family are in Michigan except one niece who is in the SF Bay area.
I really don’t want to move back to Michigan, an totally acclimated to desert life and the sometimes extreme heat like the last week here. Only 106 just now, much cooler than the 116 the other day!
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Ahhh yes, same again, I don’t collect disability because my husband can support us both just fine. And thank goodness we don’t have to live on those incomes because I know a couple of people who do and they’re just *barely* scraping by.
Oh thank you. I had a pain free day a couple of years ago. It was the day after one of those epidural steroid injections (which I described in a post aweek or two ago). We went to the movies and I was literally running around the parking lot!! I’ll never forget that.
I wouldn’t be able to be alone partly because of the bipolar and partly because there is so much I can’t do physically. You’re brave, although you sound like you’re ok with it. Good for you!
I know that out of the blue lightening strike pain. I have to stay absolutely still until it passes. Incredible pain.
I can see why you want to stay in Vegas. Dry heat heat makes it much better. Damn that’s hot! I guess if you’re acclimated! 🙌
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I had steroidal injections in 2013 when this all started, that was hell. but it settled the discs down enough to go on with my life.
Lightning is a good way to describe the pain, it strips everything in your life including thoughts away. So intense.
Yeah I’m OK being alone and have lived years alone before my marriages. Three failed marriages. Three strikes, I’m out!
Wouldn’t mind having a lady in my life but she’d have to understand that marriage is not possible. I’ve had enough. It cost me too much in many ways.
Especially a travel companion. When able, I take day trips or an over-nighter then back home. If I were to ever move back up north, i’d have to be able to pay for a house as a cash deal.
Just too bloody cold up there and everything seems so dirty to me now after being here where almost everywhere is beautifully manicured…
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Do you have a caregiver or partner who helps you when it’s bad? I’ve completely forgotten what things I said already since I lost the first message. Doh! I feel silly! Haha!
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Fiddlesticks! I just wrote a long reply and lost it! I’ll try again!
First of all, it’s nice to meet you! You live in MI? where? Both my parents grew up there. My mother was in Kalamazoo and my father in a tiny town in the south about an hour nothing of South Bend. My maternal gramma lived in petoskey, I have a cousin in Detroit, and when I was a kid we spent our summers in South Haven in a beautiful house my uncle built . You could see the beach on lake MI. Sorry, terrible ramble! Continued….
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I’ve had 6 of those stupid injections and they usually do very little. They’re no fun, I agree! After those and a nerve ablation, it’s just another shitty day when get them. They hurt a lot after a few
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*they hurt a lot afterwards
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Three marriages. That’s a lot of pain and energy. My husband and I have been married for 24 years as of next month. I went through my parent’s divorce when I was 14. It was very ugly. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I’m sorry you had to go through that three times. 😦
Day trips are so fun! I can’t do it anymore, but we used to do it. There are so many places to go around here (I’m in the East SF Bay area).
The town I live in is kind of manicured like that. It is nice. San Francisco seems utterly disgusting in some places. The dirty snow during MI winters is so gross.
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