A little sitrep

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Karda

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Just thought I'd let you all know whats going on and why I've been so quiet.
As many of you know from the T-Shirt thread I've been going thru some pain and having tingliness in my left arm/hand. The pain thing has been ongoing for a few years now, off and on, and the tingliness is a new thing as of the last time my back went south.

I finally had enough and got myself to the doc to see what can be done to make this old fart feel better.
Been thru a barrage of testing and so far nothing really major is turning up except for the fact that I have some pretty good spinal arthritis and disc degeneration going on..... and the possibility that I may have carpal tunnel syndrome in my left arm/hand. All blood tests are showing as in the normal ranges and despite being in pain at the time my blood pressure was good.
Had to have a mole removed from my left inner knee and nursing the wound is my biggest deal right now.

Hoping to get a good overview of my condition and results of the EMG this coming Friday. Not looking forward to being further cut upon, but if it will relieve pain and tingliness, then so be it. The likely aren't going to be able to do much about my back problems other than medicate.

Some of my other problems seem to be mild OCD, PTSD and bouts of depression because of the things that caused the PTSD, the pain and life in general. I'm going to be looking at the possibility of some therapy to look into these issues and get a better handle on them. I need to get out more, exercise more and work on my insomnia.

In short, I've gotten to be a bit of a mess and need to take steps to rectify myself and situation as best as I can.

So there you have it....


As far as my participation here?.... Hopefully it'll come round and i'll be back to my happy self.
As for the T-Shirts?...... They are on hold for now, until I can get feeling better so I have energy to motivate. Right now I'm just trying to heal up and get rested so that I can bear the next round of tortures the docs wants to order.

Not that I have to say it because you all are such good forumites.... but please be good to each other and help to watch over the forum when I'm not around. I do check in here several times a day, even on my worst days, but now i'll be going back and forth to the docs and there will be times i'm not here for a spell.
 
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Not fun. With the arthritis and the disc degeneration you could be joining me with sciatica next. I had a lot of success with physical therapy with that the first time around, not so much lately.

Definitely go for some kind of activity to keep it all from locking up.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Not fun. With the arthritis and the disc degeneration you could be joining me with sciatica next. I had a lot of success with physical therapy with that the first time around, not so much lately.

Definitely go for some kind of activity to keep it all from locking up.
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Heh, I haven't even addressed my lower back problems and sciatica with my doctor other than telling her I have problems. She seems to want to address things one at a time. There was mention of getting me run thru an MRI.

One thing I myself have noticed is that my left side (non dominant) is taking all the damage, likely from my using it as my shield all my life.
 
Good luck Karda!

Occasionally I have tingling and numbness in my extremities. My problems are caused my pinched nerves and inflamed joints. Physical therapy and a Chiropractor have helped me out a ton. My mom and I are getting ready for a big move, should make things interested. But at least I have most of the use of my body.

Good luck! If we can be of any help, let us know. Smoke and Prayers sent your way.

Heber
 
Thanks Heber!
Against my docs advice and wishes I did get a little chiropractic adjustment done. She advises that the adjustments may be making things worse. As in how when you pop your knuckles all the time and end up with arthritic hands. At best it's a temporary fix and if it's causing more damage, I suppose I will have to defer to her expertise in the matter.
 
Terri, is that you? Just checking Karda, you sound like my wife, we spend more time going to doctors and therapists than anything else, every week one of us has an appointment with one of the above.

I hope ya feel better, almost all your symptoms sound like my wife's. Have you had a discogram yet? It's where they inject contrast dye into the discs and map the path of the pain and identify which discs are causing the most pain.

Sometimes the meds cause the pain too, if you've been on a narcotic pain reliever for long periods of time, if you don't take the ever increasing dosages at the exact times, your body reminds you you're late in keeping the med levels where they're needed, it does this by causing pain as a reminder your late.

My wife's been going through this for some time now, we've done everything short of acupuncture so if you ever wanna gripe pm or email me I've been feeling with pain in one form or another since the 80s when I was in my 20s.

Smoke and prayers heading your way from NEPA, hope you feel better.
 
I hope you feel better soon Karda, sucks feeling that way and I hope they give you some relief, we will try to be good in your absence, well I will anyway, cant say nothing about that Bawanna guy though :D:D but I will keep my eye on him for ya.
 
Best wishes Karda, I screwed my back up years ago and it just comes back when I least expect it, I'll do something as innocuous as turning to look out the window and BAM no more standing up straight for three days. Nevermind trying to get things done. Good luck bud, and like others have said don't stop moving.
 
That is bad news. Take care of yourself. I have significant (not severe) arthritis in my hips, feet, knees etc and its no fun. But it is manageable. While I would follow your doctor's advice, if imaging shows no acute problem, chiropractic should not hurt. I go to my chiro maybe 3-4 times per year, so not much but I do find it helpful. I take Indocin daily, which originally started to relieve chronic pain from gout. My rheumatologist really didn't want me to stay on it and monitors my blood but I've basically insisted on it. I said, well, if you tell me its really bad to take I won't but I need something and this works for me.

Do as I say not as I do! Losing weight takes pressure off the joints and gentle exercise especially stretching and heat\ice helps a lot.
 
mari ashirbad lay swikarnu huss Karda.

I hope the Dr. has some good ideas for helping relieve the pain and other issues. As someone that took pretty high levels of pain meds and did for a few years I can confirm what T. Erdelyi says about the meds actually causing pain they also cause a lot of other problems that are sometimes as bad as the original issue. I am working my way off and I find meditation and surprisingly exercise actually do a better job of managing the pain than the meds do so I now only take the meds as I work off them to keep from having bad withdrawls (a whole other issue with taking most pain meds) Endorphins from the exercise seem to help a lot. When my pain flairs up really bad now I first start running through some of the more strenuous satria forms of pencak silat and usually that seems to actually help. Very counter intuitive, I used to just want to curl up and wait for the pain meds to work. Anyway, Take good care of yourself. I will do my best to not cause any trouble (sorry again that you had to fix that slip a few days ago and thanks for catching it for me)
 
pugs75 said:
I hope you feel better soon Karda, sucks feeling that way and I hope they give you some relief, we will try to be good in your absence, well I will anyway, cant say nothing about that Bawanna guy though :D:D but I will keep my eye on him for ya.
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What? I was gonna offer to help keep these animals on the straight and narrow, but now I'm the rabble rouser! :D I better work on improving my reputation here post haste. I was a rabble rouser on another gun forum, great fun! Then they made me a Super Moderator, now I gotta act like a good guy and not rabble rouse. :( Well I still do a little now and then.

Karda, we also don't have to say it but you know all you gotta do is ask and the gang here will do whatever we can to do whatever you need done.
 
Ill help ya there Pugs if you need me to pitch in some cash for the materials to bend a leather straight jacket for that Bawanna guy! If we can pin him down then Karda should be fine! Hang in there Karda were workin on him! Hope your feeling better! I remember when i was so bad i couldnt pick up the coffee pot. Keep your bones moving. You can recover. Theres a lot to be said about physical therapy and other therapies but the only thing that turned things around for me was finding something i loved to do that was physical (windsurfing) and used that to motivate some kind of regular exercise so i could do more of it:cool: The hardest thing for me was learning what you cant do while your heeling. Sometimes the wrong move can set you back months but as you get better those same things only set you back hours or not at all if that makes any sense.
pugs75 said:
I hope you feel better soon Karda, sucks feeling that way and I hope they give you some relief, we will try to be good in your absence, well I will anyway, cant say nothing about that Bawanna guy though :D:D but I will keep my eye on him for ya.
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Thanks for the update, Karda, we were wondering about your situation and now we're behind you as you make improvements.

In the meantime, I'm hoping that you can find some beauty and solace in nature and this Spring that is currently happening around us.
 
Karda sorry to read that you are going through pretty rough seas. I'm sending all my prayers for better weather ahead.
 
Karda, by any chance did you attend the "University of South Vietnam" back in the 60s? Get to feeling better.
 
Thank You My Friends!
I'll try to keep you all updated.
Just feeling a bit overwhelmed by my obligations all around and not feeling well and need a bit of time and care to recover.

Bookie said:
Karda, by any chance did you attend the "University of South Vietnam" back in the 60s? Get to feeling better.
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No I didn't, I was a teenager when that war ended.
 
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