Tuesday, June 24, 2008

ouch

last night I did something to my back...not sure what. Basically, I turned sideways, my back cracked a bit (like normal) and a minute later I was writhing on the floor in pain. Possibly the worse pain I have ever felt.

So bad that I
a. thought I was going to throw up and crawled to the bathroom so I could writhe on the floor there in front of the toilet, where I sat sobbing from the pain for approximately an hour and

b. while sobbing and writhing had a serious debate with B over whether we could afford the $50 copay (plus whatever other bullshit fees will come up) that is required to go to the emergency room. I was pretty sure at one point that my kidney had exploded, since it hurt that bad.

In the end B helped by bringing me hot towels to put on my back while I lay on the bathroom floor, I took a pretty strong painkiller we had lying around from previous hurts, and we decided if I was still in bad pain this morning when it wore off, B was drop me off at student health on his way to work. This morning it still hurts, but only a bit, so I'm forgoing even that.

But man. That freaking hurt. Is this what happens when you start getting older?

In other news, I really love ms moon's latest post about her views of religion and god. I especially liked this part:

it reminds me of a group I used to go to of sexual abuse survivors and so many of the women gave god the glory for their ability to heal and go on with their lives, making sure that the chain of abuse had been broken in their families and I always wanted to shout at them, "Give yourself the credit! You're the one who did it! You're the one doing it! Not god. And by the way, where was god when you were a little child being abused?"

6 comments:

  1. Once the warranty expires, things just start going down hill...

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  2. This is a good reason to have a chiropractor you can trust. And yes, everything falls apart when you get older. I recommend getting physical NOW and staying that way. Otherwise, it just all gets rusty and weird and tends to ache.
    And Ms. Eden- thank you so much for the shout-out. I feel honored. I do.

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  3. I'm so sorry - feel better!

    I've thrown out my back a few times. I'm about a decade+ older than you though. But my sister first developed back problems at 17, so it can happen young.

    The last time I went to a doctor about it, he showed me my x-ray and basically said that the disks between my bottom 2 vertebrae should look like grapes, but mine are turning into raisins.

    He told me to lose weight. Gee, like that never occured to me and I'm overweight just because I choose to be as a lifestyle choice!

    I has already tried a chiropractor who didn't help at all and wanted me to come 2x a week for 2 months. Right. Like I'm going to pay my specialist copay of $45 twice a week. I think not.
    He also tried to claim that I needed other procedures offered by him & his staff that would cost even more. I think chiropractic is a big racket.

    The best advice I've gotten for my back is to just take Advil as soon as it starts acting up. That will reduce inflammation which is what causes the pain.

    If this recurs more often, you might want to read "Mind over back pain" by Dr. John Sarno. He essentially says that the pain creates a feedback loop in your body which causes it to get worse & worse and just knowing that & internalizing it can reduce much of the oain and that there's really nothing structurally wrong.

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  4. ms moon-

    but...but...I am physical! I don't go to the gym or anything, but I walk to work every day (1 mile each way), just spent the entire weekend camping which required setting up tents, hiking up and down a giant mountain to get to music several times, pushing a car out of the mud when it got stuck...hmm, now that I think about it, maybe it was a delayed reaction to pushing a car out of mud...

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  5. Uh...I think you answered your question. Now don't be doing things like that!
    And when I said get physical, I guess I was thinking along the lines of what you're doing now (walking- my favorite form of exercise) and also something for flexibility and joint health like yoga which has been a godsend (whoops!) to me.

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  6. Last time I threw out my back it was afer opening a heavy garage door (the electricity was out, ergo, no automatic door opener)

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