Grateful for this amazing view!
Good news!
After first having two weekends with barely any back pain, in the past week, the back pain did not return and I was feeling like a different person. As you may remember, I had some heavy medication with tramadol combined with something else that I was prescribed last year when they found the discopathy in my lower back. I cut these back by myself from 2 to 1 after a week but sadly needed to take them for months after as I could not cope with the pain.
My daily life was very limited in many ways, which was quite depressing to be honest. The only flare up I had was during the "treadmill days" but this caused my knees to hurt a lot and when the treadmill was returned, my back pain appeared back slowly getting worse. Then I ended up in the hospital in May for taking these meds too long and was prescribed these tramadol with paracetamol instead. Sadly, they did not take away the pain most days and so I was still very limited. They also prescribed me a bunch of other things which I quickly noticed didn't help me at all, and cut these without any issues.
Hello hernia!
In June, the pain was so bad and a new sort of pain, that I asked for a new MRI scan and found out there was a small hernia in the same area. At least now I knew what it was and I had reason to ask for the heavier meds again. They helped me through it for about 10 days, but I had to take them twice a day (prescribed) while I kept swimming every day to hopefully make things better and wait for the physical therapy to start (still haven't heard back though).
I did not like having to take the heavier meds again because of the incident in May where my heart started racing and I felt like I was in shutdown mode before going to the emergencies. But when you're in so much pain, you don't care anymore.
Celebrating the good days
During these weekends with little to no pain, I was so happy and celebrated these days as a big win because I didn't even know how it felt to be without back pain anymore. If you're dealing with pain that long, you can't even remember how that is.
Last week, the pain didn't return on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday for that matter.. I decided enough of these meds and didn't take them anymore. I'm like that, it's a bad habit that when the pain is over, I suddenly forget about treatment. This was a stupid move so it seems because Wednesday evening I started to feel the same as I did in May..
Here we go again..
Thursday was worse, but still doable, but to be sure I informed my boyfriend that if something were to happen he should bring me to that same hospital and and told him what to say. He was worried, so was I. I kept calm and stayed in all day. When I woke up on Friday, I already felt shit because the night was rough and during the day my heart was worse but I was sure this was due to the medication I quit taking and I had to sit it out now.
I remembered that I was prescribed calming tablets in May for the night and had 3 left of them. I took one for two nights to help me fall asleep, although yesterday evening I felt quite shit, I didn't need that tablet to fall asleep, thankfully. It's progress.
Doubt
After reading about quitting these meds overnight, I doubted if I should take one again but I figured I'm already days in so better not. Lesson learned though, if I ever end up having to take something heavy as these again, I will slowly reduce the dose. I'm sticking to my blood pressure medication only now.
I feel ok-ish today, but it's still here and I can't ignore the symptoms either which makes my days very long currently but I'm just very happy that I have no back pain currently and I'm quite sure that even when I do one day, a naproxen or paracetamol would do instead of these heavy meds I needed for too long.
Swimming was key
The answer to my pains were swimming! I swam almost daily since the end of June when the pool opened. Only when I didn't feel well or it was passing 35 degrees and high humidity I skipped because I don't want to burn. Today will be the first day that I feel comfortable again to give it a try and I really hope I will enjoy it because I have a bit of a sore (muscle) pain in my back (not where the hernia was but higher) because of the twisting and turning in bed last night. I can easily separate the pains by now, lol.
It's hard to believe that you can be so limited for so long and then within weeks of swimming for an hour a day or so, you go back to no pain. Incredible!
Silver gold stackers
I'm thinking about starting the silver gold stackers engagement initiative up again later this week after @trumpman send me a tip for a question. Thanks for that :) It will be nice to get back into normal routines again now that the summer holidays are halfway over (still 4 or 5 weeks to go).
If you liked to join, and win some HSBI shared that I gifted to people who answered the question, keep an eye out for my posts in the next week. I have some liquid hive while hive is now for sale so I might as well use some for this to grow our stakes, right?
The picture is taken by your truly.