Tag Archives: back pain

Recovery time

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I’m so frustrated dealing with injury recovery. I feel like I’m living my life in recovery mode.

Sciatic pain: 4 months of limited cardio, stopped my weekend walks for 5 weeks, and while now pain free, I am still coming back slowly so as not to trigger it again.

Golfer’s elbow: Ongoing. It reminds my that it’s still there every few days.

Teris major (the muscle behind the deltoid on my right shoulder): No idea how I injured it, but it stops me from getting a good night’s sleep, and has forced me to take it easy on all kinds of exercises to avoid pain.

My buddy is coaching me on keeping the weights I do down and focusing on good technique. I’m actually listening rather than being a stubborn fool who just pushes through pain like I’ve done for decades. But, dang, this is mentally tougher than actually pushing myself.

I’ve spent my athletic life being the underdog. I was the smallest kid being picked last on teams until Grade 10. Playing water polo and having the most inefficient swim stroke made me one of the slowest players in the pool… who had to work harder than anyone, with less rest, on every swim set.

I got accustomed to pushing hard to compensate for my shortcomings. What I lacked in talent I made up for with heart and effort. I learned how to push myself… hard! And now I know that this is not the way forward. Now I have to be smarter than to push through pain and injury. I need to be ok with showing up and doing the work that will protect me from future injuries rather than bring them on.

It’s so much easier to say than to do.

If I’m honest, this sucks. A few days ago I mentioned that I’d like to go one week injury free, I concluded in that post,

I’m reminded of the quote, ‘Choose your hard.’

When I’m sedentary my back aches. When I’m working out, different muscles choose to ache. Well, I guess I just have to choose my ache. Yet I’m actually not joking when I say, when I beg, can I please get one week ache free, just to know what that’s like.”

Being constantly in recovery mode is not the kind of hard I want, but it’s the kind of hard I have to face right now. Progress currently isn’t getting better or stronger, it’s not losing ground while I let my body heal. The trick is not to injure anything else in the process.

Daily aches

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I was joking with a buddy yesterday and said, “What I wouldn’t do to have one week with no part of my body aching.”

I dealt with sciatic pain from December to March. I’ve been dealing with golfer’s elbow almost as long and it pops back unexpectedly, even when I’m not using it much. And now, I’ve got a deltoid pain that is making it hard to sleep comfortably.

The sciatic pain has caused me to reduce my cardio goals. I’ve also been less focused on lifting heavy and my buddy is coaching me on both better form, and also pacing myself in the gym… things I can struggle with on my own. And still the aches and pains persist.

Granted, I’m not in agonizing pain every day with my back haunting my every move, like I was 20 years ago, and I’m in great shape… but the aches! I’m tired of alway feeling like I’m on the mend.

I’m reminded of the quote, ‘Choose your hard.’

When I’m sedentary my back aches. When I’m working out, different muscles choose to ache. Well, I guess I just have to choose my ache. Yet I’m actually not joking when I say, when I beg, can I please get one week ache free, just to know what that’s like.

Upside down

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I’m currently lying on an inversion table. I have no idea if this will help with my sciatica pain, but while I wait for a pain clinic appointment I’m willing to try anything. The meds given to me don’t seem to help, and I’ve stopped taking them. I do my physio exercises religiously, and still I’m uncomfortable any time that I stand for more than a few minutes.

So upside down I go for a few minutes at a time. I’ll try to do this a couple time in the morning and in the evening over the next week, and hopefully by the March break I’ll feel a little relief. It’s so challenging to live moving from seated position to seated position. Up until now, I’ve spent most of my life avoiding sitting and now it’s my relief.

The good news is that the pain level is tolerable as long as I’m not put in a position where I need to stand for a long time. The bad news is that I’ve been dealing with this since December, and I’m not sure if the end is in sight yet?

So, upside down I go again.

Bad back

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At the end of Grade 9 I was 4’11” and at the end of Grade 10 I was 5’6.5” tall. I grew 7.5” in 1 year, and during that growth spurt my back torqued a bit giving me mild scoliosis. That year, and for a bit longer, my heals hurt. They couldn’t handle the extra weight I put on. A couple years after that, I started having issues with my back.

But I was young and full of energy. I dealt with back pain by just putting up with it… until it crashed on me, then I was basically in survival mode, incapacitated. I’d sleep on the floor with my feet up on a pillow or coffee table, and I’d take a combination of pain killers and alcohol to get me through 2-4 days of agony before I could get myself back to ‘normal’… with that normal being consistent but manageable back pain.

When I met my wife, at 28 years old, I was at a point where I’d been coping with a high level of daily pain for almost 9 months. It was debilitating. My wife, who was just my girlfriend at the time kept recommending her physio, and I didn’t really want to try someone else, I was getting massages and seeing a chiropractor, and thought I was doing enough.

Then one day I was feeling the pain more than usual. I used to ride my bicycle to work, but my back was bad enough that I took the bus. It was an unusual day where I had to sit in an all day meeting and my back couldn’t handle sitting all day.

I was in agony by the time I got on the bus headed home, and after I got on the crowded bus an elderly lady got up from her seat and said something like, ‘I think you need this more than me’. I declined, thanking her and saying that the last thing I needed to do was sit. This exchange hit me hard… an old lady got up to offer me a seat. How bad must I look for this to have happened. That day I asked my wife for the number to her physio.

That decision changed my life considerably. The physio had me doing these tiny movements to push my hips over to the left and after 2 sessions with him, I woke up one morning and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I took a shower and I couldn’t shake this bizarre feeling. After the shower, I was shaving and it suddenly hit me… I wasn’t in pain.

In the 3 decades, since that experience, I’ve never had my back be as bad as that, but I’ve had some tough episodes. One involved a herniated disc in my neck that sent nerve pain down my left arm. Scroll back a few years on this blog and you will definitely hear me talking about it because it was really all I could think of for a few months.

And now again, for the past few months, I’ve been dealing with sciatic pain down my right leg. My new diagnosis: piriformis syndrome. Basically my butt muscle is squeezing my L5 sciatic nerve. I’m now waiting for an appointment with an anesthesiologist, who will likely give me a shot to ‘cool down’ the issue so that my physio work can actually teach me to keep that area more relaxed. But in the meantime, the pain is triggered, not by sitting, but rather by standing. Even a three minute shower is long enough to initiate the pain.

I’ve joked for years that my mind feels 20 years younger than my actual age, and my back feels 20 years older. A funny remark when I’m in my 30’s, which feels a bit scarier at 58. But if my back has taught me one thing over the past few decades it’s that if I don’t care for it well it will humble and age me.

And so, here I am in recovery mode again, in a slow but steady and dedicated way. I’m trying to stay positive, knowing that discipline and care will help me overcome my back challenges. No appointment scheduled yet with the anesthesiologist, I’m still waiting for the call… in a seated position as often as possible.

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Update: It is NOT piriformis syndrome. My massage therapist and physio both agree that this is not the issue. I’ve had zero referral pain when my massage therapist digs into this muscle. It is DEFINITELY my L5 sciatic nerve, it’s probably coming from my spine/disc (which shows arthritis in the x-ray)… but the diagnosis above is not correct.