I had sciatic pain from about December to March. It got bad enough that my doctor requested a pain specialist appointment for me, and I had it yesterday. Despite the fact that I’m no longer in pain, I kept the appointment so that I can learn more about my disc issues and maybe figure out some preventative measures to ensure I don’t end up in 4 months of pain again.

Have you ever seen that joke where a patient is talking to a doctor and says, “Doctor, when I poke right here, it hurts.” And the doctor replies, “Well then don’t poke there.” That’s essentially the advice I got.

The specialist said that I’m getting old, (it wasn’t intended as an insult, he told me we are the same age), and that the wear-and-tear that my back shows is typical for active people my age. He then said that of course I should stay active and keep doing what I’m doing. Then came the punchline: “If you do something and it hurts, then stop doing it.”

That’s what I waited months to hear. He told me that he used to do a lot of running until he had a knee replaced and now he walks. I asked him if I should stop using a weighted vest to workout, something I was doing before the pain, but haven’t tried since. His response you can guess, “Try it. If it hurts, stop.”

“But if it hurts, the pain might come back for a while.”

“Oh yeah, it could be two to three months.”

It ended with him joking that he could write me a note to give to my wife to get out of doing dishes for a while. I wasn’t amused.

I don’t know exactly what I was looking for, but it wasn’t this. I suppose I’ll just keep doing my physio exercises, keep going to the gym, and if something hurts, I guess I just stop doing that thing.