Lessons in slowing down come in many forms. I haven’t talked about this here yet, but a week before I was cleared to do all my normal things from my hysterectomy I injured myself. It was at week five. We had gotten a storm the night before and one of my many houseplants had fallen over down by my koi pond.
Since I was so close to being cleared, I went down there to make it upright again thinking it’s fine. It was a corn plant and I knew that it wasn’t that heavy, so I didn’t think anything of it. I had not thought about how the last five weeks, I hadn’t done anything whatsoever physically speaking.
So I bent over and with one hand tipped the plant upright and that’s when it happened. It felt like an electrifying bolt of lightning struck the top of my shoulder and ran down my left side of my body to my foot. Knowing instantly something was wrong, I went back inside, took some ibuprofen and sat down.
I had pain shooting down my leg, from my buttocks to my ankle. Over the course of about a day or so it got worse and worse. The only relief I had was sitting or laying down. I Googled and watched videos and discovered this was sciatica nerve pain. Apparently, I had inflamed a disc and now it was swollen and angry and pinching the bunch of nerves that was causing my intense pain. Probably just by bending over and putting my arm forward. Just shoot me now.
This was a very busy time for me, I was delivering paintings for an art exhibit, I had committed to a painting class, our Tennessee riding vacation was about to start, my son’s college orientation was right after. I just didn’t take the time to go to the chiropractor, which now I regret.
I kept thinking, maybe it’ll get better. Well, it didn’t. It continued to get worse and worse. So much so, that I couldn’t hardly walk for more than 8 seconds at a time. Standing was excruciating and I’d never had this level of pain before. It felt like a level ten. Not even going into labor if I can recall hurt like this. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. However, it’s been over 18 years since that pain, and it was over in 17 hours and this has been going on for 5 months!
I started having areas going numb on my leg. First, I noticed my big toe felt like I had a hair wrapped around it. I kept trying to pull it off and there was nothing there. It was the craziest feeling. I also had numb areas on the front of my lower leg.
The orientation at my son’s college was just awful. I remember being horrified at not being able to keep up with the tour. Then, we had to climb stairs which I basically had to pull myself up, without letting myself cry. I was in agony. No amount of pain pills touched this pain. I guess because it was nerve pain.
Showering was torture, I couldn’t even raise my arms to grab my soap or wash my hair without being in such intense pain in my neck and down my left leg. I would have to grab soap quickly, then bend over 90 degrees in the shower and wash. This was not easy to do because our shower is the size of a refrigerator.
I finally was able to make an appointment with my chiropractor, but I had waited too late I think. She was able to get me from a level 10 pain down to about a 3-4. She was also able to get rid of the neck pain which is what I was having on top of my sciatica pain anytime I lifted my arms up. I felt pretty good even with the level 3-4 pain because the other had been debilitating.
But even with this new 3-4 level pain I wasn’t able to do much because it would intensify. The more I did something, the more it aggravated it. I got to be scared to do anything. My Studio Gardens tour and Open Studio Visit got postponed because I literally could not go out and pull weeds and keep things tidy. If I hadn’t pulled the front bed weeds and mulched before my hysterectomy it would’ve even been worse.
Studio Gardens and Open Studio Tour postponed
Because of that, I couldn’t clean up my studio for visitors. I didn’t even go in my studio and paint because it just hurt too much. Eventually, I just came to terms that my spring tour was going to have to wait until September, not ideal for Studio Gardens because it was past it’s prime. *sigh*
See some photos of what I was able to get from this summer here on my garden Facebook Page called Jaime’s Gardens ~ An Artist’s Gardens.
Our Florida trip was coming up in July and I was scared that the long drive down there would actually make it worse because of all of the sitting in the same position for so long which is not good for sciatica. I decided to see my doctor and see if there was anything that could be done. Maybe muscle relaxers? She prescribed muscle relaxers and Gabapentin which is for nerve pain. Neither of those did a single thing. I just suffered but was still able to get relief while sitting or laying down, thankfully.
So, my summer was a depressing time of me looking out at all of my gardens growing and not being able to work in them. Somehow, they survived without me thanks to my watering system. They’re a wild mess right now and next year, I expect some things will have died because the weeds took over and probably choked them out.
I continued to go to the chiropractor weekly and she got me to a pretty solid 3 level of pain and sometimes even a 2. We experimented with fire cupping a few times and even dry needling once. I went to the chiropractor 16 times between the middle of June and the middle of October and then my insurance benefits ran out for visits.
Then something happened the last of September and my pain worsened again. It skyrocketed back up to a level 10. I don’t recall doing anything to have caused it, no lifting anything heavy or tugging, nothing. The only thing that had been done differently was the dry needling (acupuncture in the ear). The pain came on about a week after that. I don’t have any reason to believe that caused it, I’m just saying it was the only thing different.
I even missed my favorite thing… Halloween and my friend Jody’s Halloween Party. Happy Halloween by the way.
Not able to bear any more, I finally called the doctor.
My pain was back up to a 10 and I was miserable again. In tears actually. I could feel myself slipping into despair. Wondering if I was going to have the rest of my life in this horrible pain. Thinking I may end up in a wheelchair. I was at an emotional breaking point.
Instead of waiting on the chiropractor to fix me, I couldn’t wait anymore, I called my regular doctor again and asked if I could be seen and helped.
Not giving up on the chiropractor, but just needing immediate relief before I lost my mind. Luckily, someone could see me right away – not my regular nurse practitioner because she was off on maternity leave but her backup. I was fine with that. In fact, at this point if someone said hold this snake and stand out in the rain with one foot up I’d do it if they said it would work.
So, the nurse practitioner saw me ordered 2 X-rays, gave me a steroid shot in the rear and a referral for an Ortho doctor. I got the X-rays that day. When the results came back, it said I didn’t have any fractures or dislocations which I was glad for and that I had: “Some moderate degeneration in your lumbar spine. This shouldn’t be causing the extreme pain you’re having.” The other X-ray, she commented “Mild arthritis in your hip and you have sacroiliac arthritis. This is causing your pain.”
That caused me to go down a rabbit hole for sacroiliac arthritis because I had never heard of it. I found out that it’s often referred to as SI Joint. I watched a bunch of videos about it and stretches, etc and I ended up buying a special belt to help relieve pain along with some joint supplements called Ligaplex 1. When I got the belt (Amazon) I put it on immediately. I wore it for a day or two. It was pretty painful actually and I couldn’t wear it for very long.
Then I had another chiropractor appointment and told her everything that had happened. She wasn’t buying the pain being caused from the SI Joint. I told her the belt hurt me and she said it probably wasn’t the problem and to stop wearing it if it hurt. By this time, I had had my first appointment with the Ortho doctor. He had ordered his own X-rays and an MRI.
OH and get this, while I was at the Ortho doctor, he ordered X-rays to be had that day in the office. I was in such pain and stress that while waiting there for the X-ray I was sucking on a mint and bit down on it so hard that I broke my tooth. Great. It just keeps getting better, doesn’t it? But wait, it does.
Oh, how about another issue, just for kicks?
My next Ortho appointment to review my MRI and he tells me my L4 and L5 are most likely the problem. I can’t remember what all he said. In fact, I asked him right before he started going over the results if I could record the appointment and he said no. I was pretty upset about that because I was alone and I really have a hard time taking information like that in and remembering everything. But it is what it is.
After going over the screens on his computer he tells me that I would be a good candidate for an epidural injection. So, I agreed to have that done. He sent me to another doctor, because he doesn’t do the injections.
After all of this pain, I’ve really been overcompensating to walk for months. I sometimes have to walk bent over 90 degrees, like in the shower. Somehow this relieves it. I guess it takes the pressure off the nerve. Walking like that is embarrassing if I’m in front of a bunch of people so I’ve also found I can walk with my body contorted to the left side and that helps, too. I feel like it doesn’t look as creepy but I have definitely jacked up stuff now in my neck. Not only my neck, but now I can’t lay on my left side because it feels like my bursitis is back.
So I tell the Ortho doctor this and he pokes around on my hip and I can tell immediately that yep, that’s the bursitis pain and he asks if I want a cortisone shot for it and that it could even end up helping with my other pain. I said absolutely. So, in he comes with the shot. The last one I had many years ago I remember hurting but omg this one was pretty brutal. I don’t know if because I was so flared up already or what by my God that hurt. It hurt for a week. It felt like I had an egg under my skin for about 5 days it was so swollen.
I still am not laying on that side yet and it’s been 2 and a half weeks. Also, after a shot like that you actually hurt worse for 2-3 days. Ugh. I was miserable. Something to do with the nerves and the cortisone.
It is finally not swollen anymore but I can still feel a knot under there and that was October 3rd. Today is Halloween. It took about 6 days for that to kick in but it finally did start to ease my sciatic pain down to about an 7-8 pain level range.
Epidural Injection Day
So then, it was injection day, this past Monday. I was a little scared because when you hear the words injection, epidural and spinal cord all in the same sentence… well you should be paying attention for sure. I had to have person with me to be there during and to take me home. Thankfully, by best friend Kelly was up for it. I have to say, this was the best experience. They really took good care of me, it didn’t hurt at all and I was in and out of there in no time.
I did have all of the side effects to go along with it. My sciatic pain was pretty flared up all of the 2 days even while sitting I noticed, extreme headache, shaky/jitters and weird heartbeat. The injection was Monday and today is Thursday and I can still feel a little jittery but today was the first day I could actually tell a difference in the pain. I could stand up longer and walk further before the pain really kicked in. So I’m really hopeful that it’ll keep improving since it’s not been a week yet.
What next if this doesn’t work? Well, I think if I don’t get relief from this there is an option of a procedure (outpatient) where they burn your nerve endings to relieve the pain. My friend Kelly had it done and hers has worked but they told her that the nerves can grow back, so she’s waiting for that to happen. Happily, I think she said it’s been about 2 years. But you can keep getting it done.
But I’m hoping this injection will work. Now, I realize that this is probably just masking the reason for the pain which is my L4 and L5 lumbar vertebrae. My hopes is that my pain will be relieved enough for my body to shrink that inflammation in the discs naturally.
I don’t know if that’s even possible, but I hope it is. In the meantime, I do hope that my chiropractor can focus on the L4 and L5 and pop them back to where they’re supposed to be. Either way, I’d appreciate your good thoughts, good vibes and prayers for this to be over soon.
Learn more about me on the ‘About’ page under the additional links menu. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I also enjoy painting abstracts and have started created more and more of them. My most favorite thing to try to achieve in my painting is is mystery and telling mystical stories.
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Oh, gosh, Jaime! I’m so sorry you’ve had such a time of it. I hope you feel much better soon. Sending lots of good vibes and healing thoughts.
Thank you Anne, I hope so too! Thanks for visiting.