12-17-2024, 12:26 PM
That's quite the story mtneers...hope your stretching keeps the pain at bay. I wouldn't call mine "severe", just disruptive. But I just want to get a good start with things, maybe doing so will avoid making anything worse, like the surgury thing ferrett brought up.
(12-17-2024, 04:00 AM)mtneers_imp Wrote: In both the fall of 2021 and 2022, I experienced severe back pain. I was initially diagnosed with acute sciatica in that I could not fully stand erect and required a cane to walk. In 2021, I went thru multiple PT sessions before I could stand upright. I spent 40+ nights on the couch sleeping curled on my side because I could not lay flat on a mattress. The pain eventually subsided through a prescription of 300 mg of gabapentin. It took a week to wean off that drug…100 mg of gabapentin.
I thought it was under control until the fall of 2022 rolled around. The pain resurged and I then became under the care of a chiropractor ( never believed in them until then). His initial diagnosis when I “walked” into his office was…”you’re a hot mess”. After multiple chiropractic sessions coupled with multiple PT sessions again, it was only incrementally getting any better. The next treatment, after an MRI, was a diagnosis of spinal stenosis. This was followed by two steroid epidural injections. Not fun. I now seem to have it somewhat under control, but it is an L-4 L-5 vertebrae issue putting pressure on my spinal cord.
During 2021, the physical therapist told me if I didn’t stretch daily, I would be back. I didn’t and I was. Now, I go through about 8-10 different stretches two times daily….religiously. I haven’t taken a multiple day overnight trip on a bike for a couple years. The rallys have been my only cycle travel in the last two years. The last multiple day overnight trip, I believe, was a 2022 trip in early summer to Maine with A-man and KiowaEagle.
I now wear a back support when I ride or attempt any yard work. The worst is using a weedeater or hand tool, such as with a shovel or a rake. So, I limit my exposure to those as much as possible. Ironically, and thanks to you know who, and, as hard as it is to comprehend, it doesn’t seem to bother my tennis play as long as I remember my age and space days between play. The chiropractor told me the amount of riding I did in the past (last 3 touring bikes 40k+ miles each, all lower 48 states, 6 trips across the Mississippi) probably attributed to my back issue.
I’ve been riding since I was 8 years old. I’m not ready to quit by no means.
Hopefully, 2025 will allow me to once again to take a multiple day cycle trip.
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