Feeling your pain - there’s nothing quite like back pain!
Around 15 years ago… whilst walking up and down the hospital stairs with my wife, trying to hurry along the arrival of our first daughter, I felt the beginnings of an awful sciatic pain down my leg. Fast forwarding through some months of increasing agony, a misdiagnosis from an osteopath that prescribed exercises that exacerbated the problem… and at the lowest point was crawling to the toilet on my belly screaming like Ned Flanders, I was eating 20mg Codeines like smarties, drinking whiskey and smoking weed to get through each day, leaving my poor wife to essentially raise our baby girl alone. We went to cry in front of a surgeon, who showed me a scan of where a slipped-disc’s liquid had hardened into my sciatic nerve. By this point physcially, I resembled a twisted yellow question mark, my kidneys showing the stress from all the codeine.
I was lucky enough to have surgery that sorted the problem, and as I came around from the op, squeezing my morphine release syringe, watching the sun set on the roof of the hospital and crying at ‘Marley & Me’… I smiled at the relief and good times to come. However, the next week I spent slowly coming off the codeine in the spare room, cursing each cry from our daughter, feeling rats running over me at night… truly the worst thing I’ve ever felt.
I built up strength through short walks and was then sent on a 3-week Pilates for Beginners course. I learnt an hour routine that I still use to this day (no more running or 5-a-side or impact sports allowed for me ever). I was amused to have developed my first accidental 6-pack too! Since then, I’ve re-invented myself as a committed (commuting) cycler and occasional swimmer. Whenver I slack off these things I can feel a twinge of weakness in my lower back that gets me off my ass. The dog helps with this too.
I read somewhere this year, that back trouble has been linked with emotional and psychological issues… I can look back at some big events in my life with a wry smile. The night before getting married to my wife, I’d let a severe wind get to my neck on a walk and was unable to get out of bed on our big day without a whiskey and some painkillers. Seems like there’s always something with me.
During the stresses of the pandemic, I realised that this could go one of two ways… buy a load of weed and start drinking through the week… or try and get on top of the building feelings of stress… I got great benefit from looking into breathwork (wim hof) and still take cold showers twice daily (not had a cold or any illness now in 5 years). I have the occasional mash-up but really feel it afterwards (I’m 50 soon). I’ve just done 100 days no-booze and, like everyone above has said, the exercise and being outdoors and allowing time for yourself to enjoy music, films, friends is what makes a life worth living. Oh yeah, gummies and wonky choc help in v small doses too!
Wishing you all the best for getting past this.
.
