Neurosurgeon and Back Update

I finally saw the neurosurgeon face to face to go over my most recent MRIs and see what she could help with.

On the plus side nothing is bad enough to need surgery! The osteoarthritis and spinal degeneration progressed a little from a year ago but that’s to be expected. It also looks like the cervical spine C3-C4 disc has almost no disc left and will be fusing on its own and lumbar spine L5-S1 is headed the same way so unless I start to feel major pain and numbness down my arms or legs I don’t need surgery which is great!

She also thinks that a good portion of my neck and back pain stems not just from things we can see on the MRI but also from my Fibromyalgia which, honestly, I hadn’t considered at all because we’ve been so focused on the bulging discs, bone spurs, nerve impingement and the rest of it.

It makes sense though because my body is still at the point where if you press on my skin too hard it feels like someone is punching me.

Unfortunately there’s nothing she can do for that so I’m somewhat on my own here.

So what is my plan? Well, I can restart my home PT and will be doing so on Sunday! I also need to keep building my life on living with the pain. It’s chronic, it sucks and it’s not going anywhere. I’ve been doing a lot of that in the last several years but I think it’s time to change my focus from “when will I get my life back?” To “this is my life.”

So I’m going to read the two pain books the pain clinic suggested to me a year and a half ago, look into more natural things like acupuncture, massage, changing my diet, strengthening my body and so on. And listen to my body. That’s the most important part. Listen when it whispers before it screams.

Yes, my life will still be a lot more limited from what it was even 3 years ago but I need to accept that and work with what I can do now, not what I used to be able to do.