problems

In August of 2002, I was working full time at Walmart in the grill. This entailed the usual stuff, like cooking, taking orders, and cleaning. One night, I was washing the floor (industrial size mop) and felt my back wretch. It hurt but I kept going, and for a few days it remained sore. Finally unable to handle the pain after working all day, I came home and was going to take a muscle relaxer but because my periods were never regular, I decided to take a pregnancy test, just to make sure it was safe to take the muscle relaxer.

It was then & there that I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter.

I continued working and in October/November, realized that a portion of my face was going numb. Then it was my arm. I called my OB who told me to see my regular MD. I went to see her and she suggested that perhaps there were problems with my discs in my neck/back, particularly since two areas were affected – both upper body and now, my leg as well. She suggested that I try physical therapy, and that after I had the baby, we’d get an MRI to see what was going on. SO I went for physical therapy, but they were limited with what they could do because I was pregnant. It didn’t do any good, and I stopped going. The numbness continued, and after I had the baby in April, I went back to my dr. who had by then changed her tune, saying it was probably the baby sitting in a bad spot, and that the numbness would go away.

Then I lost my health insurance (the State only covers you up to 8 weeks post partum)

5 years later, the numbness remains and has spread to most areas of my body. It’s not really a NUMBNESS as in pins & needles but more of a loss of sensation, like I’m wearing a 2^nd skin.

Earlier this year, we finally got health insurance again and after I recovered from having my son, I went to another Dr. to talk about this loss of sensation. She wanted to see if we could figure it out as non-invasively as possible and told me to take some B12, as sometimes a lack of B12 would cause circulatory problems. It didn’t help. Then I hurt my neck/back (by walking up the stairs) and she sent me for xrays. The xray showed that I have a “straightening in the natural curvature” of my neck, and she sent me to a chiropractor. The chiropractor adjusted me a few times and wound up setting off problems in my teeth! So I stopped seeing him and worked on getting my teeth fixed. But from then on, my neck hurt pretty much all the time. Finally, my teeth problems were fixed for the most part, I went back to my Dr. to talk about my l-o-s again and she finally decided to get an MRI of my neck (and my brain). The day of, I found out that they’d need to inject me with dye to do my brain so I backed out of that one because I’m nursing my son. But I went ahead and had my neck done. Last week, she called to tell me that I have 3 bulging discs in my neck (c3/4, c5/6 and c6/7), and that one appears to be moving laterally (i.e. towards my spinal cord), so she was getting me a referral to a neurosurgeon at Dartmouth Medical Center because she feared if we let it go too long, there’d be permanent damage.

In the interim weeks since I saw the Dr., I’ve had a major increase in pain in my arms and neck, and my lower back (sacral/sciatic) is almost constant a well. I’ve also developed what I call a twitch. Just about any time I am in a laying down position, whether on my side or back, after just a minute or two, some area of my body will jump, like a muscle spasm. It might be my arm, finger, shoulder, the muscles in my back, my knee, thigh, calf. It’s bizarre to say the least and reminds me of Michael J Fox, which of course then scares me. I reported these changes to the Dr. last week, who relayed back that she thought maybe one of the discs might be “impinging” on the cord.

The only thing I take for the pain is ibuprofen and it doesn’t actually do anything, so I just haven’t bothered to take anything. I have been trying to take it easy, but that’s not easy with 3 kids and a house to take care of. For the last several days, I’ve been getting up at 5am just because I can’t go back to sleep after my son finishes nursing.

So today, I’m waiting (still) for a call from Dartmouth telling me when my appointment is to go talk with this Dr. who will look at my films and examine me and figure this out, hopefully.

I need some good vibes sent my way because I’m finding it hard to stay upbeat, to say the least. It’s hard to keep the “what-if’s” at bay, and I cannot get the image of the chiropractor’s “adjustments” out of my head, now knowing what I know about my spinal cord being “impinged”.

I’ll be working on finishing up the new site this week, barring any unscheduled trips to the OR.