Flippy - I Rant, You Read

Thursday, October 26, 2006

late at night

Six Month Surgery Anniversary Update

Like always, those of you who already know this stuff (or don’t care), feel free to skip this one.  This is for the people searching for the results of an L4-5 microdiscectomy.  And, surprisingly, there are a lot of them.  I’ve heard from people all over the world with herniated discs - the worst stories are the people without any insurance.  I don’t know how anyone can continue to live anything resembling a normal life with herniated disc pain.  It gets bad.  For me, the nerve root block injections were completely useless, and cost me (and luckily, mostly, the insurance company) the price of a mid-sized very nice SUV.  Approximately $35,000 - so if you’re getting sent to get those injections, make sure you ask them beforehand how much they’ll cost you.  I very naively thought they’d be maybe $500 each.  Oh, hahahahaha!  Joke’s on me.  I’m still being hassled for bills.  I think they keep sending bills with different amounts to confuse people, so they, oops, accidentally get more money.  The surgery center started with a bill of $21k, then $14k, then $7k, then a threatening one for $3k.  I wrote a nasty letter back - how on earth is anyone supposed to know what to pay when the amount changes constantly?  Also, they charged an outrageous amount for what they did, plus it didn’t work, except for slightly after the first injection.  There’s no way they should’ve even scheduled me for the second, much less the third when there was NO improvement after the second.  It’s all such a scummy game between the insurance companies and the doctors, with the patients caught in the middle.

Okay, that wasn’t really what I’d planned to write about.  The microdiscectomy was a success.  I was skeptical the first couple of months, even though my surgeon said I was 75% better.  I didn’t feel 75% better.  The excruciating pain down my legs was lessened, but I didn’t feel great.  Six months later, I still don’t feel great, but I feel A LOT better.  I thought I’d feel better than I did, faster than I did, in the first couple of months.  But, everything has calmed down.  I still have some pain across my left inner thigh and across both hips, probably every day.  I still take pain meds, but if they were cut off tomorrow, I probably wouldn’t jump off a building.  Unfortunately, I have lots of general all over pain - I’m going to try to get a referral to Leigh-Ann’s pain management doctor because I have all the symptoms of fibromyalgia.  Every single trigger point is super painful.  So, if I was a normal person, I’d probably be completely healed from my surgery about now.  So, don’t consider my case completely normal.  At least I no longer have the numbness in my left calf, nor any pain (usually) in my right leg at all, and my sciatica is a lot better.  My bladder is still iffy, but I just don’t have a clue what to do to fix that.  It’s so off & on and is triggered by such odd things (taking a shower, sitting, caffeine, etc.) and can be eased by standing, laying down, and Ativan.  Yeah, weird, huh?  Maybe the pain management doctor would have some ideas.  It’s really the most frustrating thing about this herniated disc (I’m pretty sure it’s nerve related) because the pain can be managed by meds, but there aren’t any bladder fixes.

The number one thing that has helped my back and leg pain, other than surgery, is my Earth Shoes tennis shoes - the negative heel has been amazing for me.  Until I bought the shoes, I was still having lots of pain after walking in the grocery store.  Ambling is really hard on me physically.  The shoes have been a life-saver.  They’re pricey ($112), but they’ve been so great.  Unfortunately, except for their tennis shoes, their other negative heel shoes are kinda ugly.  Some are okay, but only the tennis shoes look like everyone else’s shoes.  You know, if you care about those things.  But hey, they’re better looking and cheaper than Z-Coil shoes.

I love these, and I cannot say it enough.  Leigh-Ann bought a pair too, and they’ve helped her, and she didn’t even have a herniated disc.  So, if you’ve gotten here by doing a search for “negative heel” or “Earth Shoes” or “shoes that help back pain”, get some of these puppies.  Oh, and they have other colors too, I just like the pink.