Heal-N-Soothe

I read recently that the root of every disease is inflammation. So the natural reaction to pain caused by inflammation is to take something to stop inflammation from happening. When you read about prolotherapy though, the idea is get the body to inflame itself so that it has a chance to heal. So if imflammation is how the body heals itself, when is it too much inflammation that leads to disease? Are there different types of good/bad inflammation? I wish I was a doctor so I had all the answers to these kind of questions.

What I do know, is that I have been told to take NSAID's consistently by doctors for pain caused by inflammation. It first started when I tore a second disc under the one I had had surgery on already. I had just had a baby and I got my daughter's stroller stuck in a very heavy glass door while I was living in London. My first reaction was to pull on it because the right tire was stuck. I was in a sort of half twisted stance and within minutes I could feel this rush of hot liquid running down my right side and an instant back ache start coming on. I knew I had really messed up my back by my own impatience at getting the stroller stuck in the door. If I could ever take back a few minutes of my life, it would be those. We are talking 4 years later and I still haven't managed to get my pain under control from that incident.

So the daily pain set in and I started taking two ibuprofen in the morning. Then I started to need them at night too. Roll forward 2 years and I was having terrible ulcer pains. My doctor then decided to give me a seizure medication 'off label' called neurontin. This made my ulcer worse and after a few weeks I was feeling depressed and double over in stomach pain every time I ate something. I went off it cold turkey which was a frightening experience...never again! Read what you are prescribed and the side effects before you take anything.

I was in and pain and ready for a more natural product. I went back to the Lose the Back Pain website and bought the Heal-N-Soothe. Actually, I tried to buy it but they were all out. That seems to be the case with all of their products. Jesse Cannon must be doing very well! When I did receive the Heal-N-Soothe, it mentioned that you should not take this product if you have an ulcer. All of the information on the website did not mention this. It is advertised as a product to take because it won't give you an ulcer but I find even many months later, it still upsets my stomach. I decided to try something else based on Amazon reviews and I feel it works better for me. It is called Wobenzym M and it can be found at your local vitamin stores as well as Amazon. I do believe in the idea of systemic enzymes because, for me, they do seem to help relieve inflammation in my body. They have made it so I can stop taking any ibuprofen products and that is good for at least my stomach.

I am attaching my own pictures of Wobenzym N and Heal-N-Soothe so you can see these are products I have actually tried. I would not say that the systemic enzymes take care of all the pain but they do seem to help with some of the inflammation and make it so that I can stop taking ibuprofen products. I still take one tramadol a day in the morning but the rest of my day, the pain is controlled by taking different herb products. I will talk more in my next post about hormone testing (especially for women) and how you can try to correct some of the imbalances and control the inflammation in more natural ways.

Pre-Existing Insurance Plan

Today is a good day. After 7 months of having no insurance, I got my approval letter for the new pre-existing health plan that is now available for people who are considered insurable. Without getting into a political discussion, this is life changing for people who fall into my group. My husband brings in pension money that makes us not qualify for assistance. I can't get a job with insurance until I fix my back problem. For the last 3 years, I have had very limited insurance help because I was being discriminated for a pre-existing condition that was from a surgery more than 10 years ago. I was categorized as 'high risk' category number 4 (which is the worst you can be) just for simply having an MRI in the last year and because I had had a cortisone injection in my hips for bursitis. I had been living in Europe for the last 8 years and never had to worry about getting help when I needed it. It was a rude awakening moving back to the USA because insurance, and the cost of insurance, had gotten so much worse since I left back in 2001. There are now huge co-pays and huge deductibles. It is crazy....

So back to the Pre-existing health insurance plan. The disclaimer is that you have to go 6 months without insurance and send in a rejection letter showing you tried to get insurance on your own. I did both of those things and am expecting my card in the mail shortly. This will be life changing for me because I haven't been able to go to the doctor for a very long time other than having prolotherapy, which I have to pay out of my own pocket anyways.

If you have not heard about the pre-existing insurance plan, you can find it on this weblink: https://www.pcip.gov/ Some States have their own plans and some States have opted out but I believe there is a Federal plan in its place. I have not seen a lot of new coverage on this and I hear that a small portion of the public has actually applied for it. If you are taking expensive medication, it is very difficult to go 6 months without any insurance. I had to get all my medication from a Canadian Pharmacy during that time and I am scared to think if the pills I am taking are even real. It could be psychological, but I feel they don't work as well as when I was getting them from my local pharmacy.

For all the back pain sufferers, this is a move in the right direction. Having to pay obscene amounts for all your healthcare just because of your pre-existing back pain condition is just plain unfair. Most people don't even go for surgery and other treatments are done for minimal costs.

Lose the Back Pain Program

For anyone who has had back pain for a certain period of time, you have probably come across the Lose the Back Pain program at some point during your internet search for information. I ordered the Lose the Back Pain program probably 5 or 6 years ago because it sounded like useful information to know and a back pain sufferer will try anything at least once.

The book and CD I got was just a cheaply made binder with pictures and a similar CD with information on stretching to get rid of common back pain problems. This was before Jesse Cannon started selling his own products because he probably realized, like most people on the internet, that the real way to make money was to sell people add-on's. I do think that if you have muscular or manageable back pain that the Lose the Back Pain package is a very wise choice. I still use some of the stretches in the book even today to help manage my back pain. Did it fix all of my problem....Nooooo, but I still found it useful and informative.

What I sort of laugh about though is all the ad-on's that I have been talked into myself by reading his very persuasive web pages. I now own an inversion table, his heal-n-soothe systemic enzyme formula and the infrared heat pad. I will talk in more detail about each of these products in the next few posts but wanted to address the Lose the Back Pain system in general for those that are considering paying for it.

Overall, the system is helpful but not life changing. Actually most of the stretching information can be found on you tube videos or other internet sources. Be mindful when spending your hard earned money. Also, be aware of the free book that the site offers. I ordered it because it said 'free' but you still had to pay the $7 in shipping. The only thing the book did was tease you into buying the Lose the Back Pain package so I didn't see any point in having the free book. Actually it is wasting space on my bookshelf as we speak. As with all the information on the internet, there is an element of buyer beware on anyone making money off of you.

A reminder on the disclaimer - I am not intending to diagnose any medical conditions or give professional medical advice. I am only speaking about these products and procedures from my own experience.

Prolotherapy

It is a very odd experience sitting in the waiting room at Orthopedic doctors or pain clinics. I am usually the youngest person in the room which in turn, makes me feel more sorry for myself that I am actually in this position and have been for the last 12 years. What a waste of time back pain has been for me. A very elderly gentlemen who was sitting next to me asked me if the doctor had managed to fix my problem yet. I felt a bit bad with my response but ended up repeating what a neurosurgeon said to me 2 years ago when I went to him to inquire about spinal fusion. 'A back pain patient, is a life time patient'. I could see the elderly man's face cloud over a bit and all I could do was look at him and silently pray....'please don't let me still be sitting here when I am in my 70's...'

So, I had my 3rd set of prolotherapy injections yesterday at the pain clinic. I am very sore at the injection sites and it doesn't leave me many ways to sit or sleep comfortably. The doctor said it was unusual for me to have bruising but I seem to bruise very easy. I watched the youtube videos on prolotherapy and it didn't look painful at all so I am wondering why it hurt so damn much as I sitting there on the table. The doctor does the procedure under xray and starts with lidocaine to make my sacrum and lower back numb. I also have pain in the piriformis muscle and IT band so she injects those areas as well with the dextrose solution.

With the first treatment, I was very sore and stiff but I didn't have any noticeable change. With the second treatment, I did feel some of the piriformis pain easing and started to feel some tightening around my L4/L5 disc area and my sacrum. I am still very stiff in the morning but I was able to do some things that I wasn't able to do before without getting a back ache. I would say that I can go around the grocery store shopping for 30 minutes and did not have a backache as long as I wasn't standing by the deli counter for endless minutes. I also managed to go to the museum for around an hour and did not have a backache, so I would call that progress. Does the pain just disappear overnight with prolotherapy....well, no....but I do notice a change in my back pain. You will be sore for a few days each time but then you will notice the tigheting affect that starts happening around the injection areas. I have been continuing with my pilates classes just to maintain my flexibility or else I feel like I really stiffen up.

The doctor says I may need 6 or more treatments since I am in the 'chronic state' and have exhausted all my other options. I am writing about prolotherapy in the hopes of helping other people. I am not sure exactly what it is going to do for me yet, but I am hopeful. I have tried to find information through other blog pages and health boards but I found it difficult to find any meaningful information for my particular situation of having DDD, arthritis, and muscular tender points. All the blog pages and health boards seem to be dominated by Dr. Hauser who says he can cure any condition with prolotherapy. He is very good with his web exposure which in I am sure really helps his business. I would definately suggest trying to find someone local who does it before jumping on a plane to Chicago for treatment. It is worth asking the doctor how successful they have been with other treatments. I also told the doctor that I wanted to go through an aggressive treatment as I read that you need to be aggressive to get a noticeable outcome. Just remember that prolotherapy is not covered by health insurance and the price ranges greatly. I was only able to find one doctor in my area and she charges $450 a treatment so we will be looking at over $3000 by the time I am done. From what I had read online, some doctors charge much more. If you find my blog, I am here to answer any questions you may have about this treatment.

The Back Pain Breakfast

When you have daily pain, it is so important to eat well because so many foods naturally fight inflammation. I can't always control what sort of day I am going to have due to pain but I can at least control what I put in my mouth and how I start my day. It has taken me many years to find out exactly what works for me and hopefully it will work for you too.

Now I know it may sound gross to those who are not used to eating this way, but I find it very tasty. It's the type of breakfast that you have to get used to eating first and then you actually look forward to it every morning. I am talking about porridge oats or as Americans call it...oatmeal. Please make sure that when you are buying oats that you buy the old fashioned kind and not the quick 1 minute version. The quick cook kind has been processed and the old fashioned kind takes about 2 minutes to cook instead of one. I am sure that we can all spare the extra minute every morning to make our breakfast.

So here is the recipe. I happen to use an iron skillet pot that I got while living in Europe. It is not necessary, but it is a great way to naturally get iron into your diet. Take a few handfuls of oats in water and add some cinnamon (which helps balance blood sugar), add a few teaspoons of ground flaxseed. I add a couple of raisins but not too much because of the sugar. I let it cook and just before serving, I add a handful of blueberries. Take it off the stove and put in a bowl with a little milk. This is a great way to get complex grains, 2 servings of fruit and omega 3's. It keeps you full for a long time and the blueberries and flax all help in naturally fighting inflammation in the body.

My back pain story....

Back pain seems to run in my family. As a child, I remember my father in the late 70’s trying to push our van that had veered off the road into a snow bank. He herniated a disc trying to push it out and he had to fly home by himself while my mother finished our week long road trip across the country by herself with 3 kids.

I was very active in high school playing soccer and doing competitive cheerleading and dance. By the time I graduated from college though, it was off to the typical desk job where I sat for my 40+ hours a week. My father had retired and suddenly his back pain problems had disappeared after suffering in his desk job for 25 years. Little did I know, that mine were just about to begin. My father’s retired job was working at a golf course and he was going to teach me how to play. I was ‘over-swinging’ while I was trying to learn how to whack the ball hard. I ended up herniating a disc and I remember the exact feeling when it happened. I had a hot feeling in a back and it started to ache immediately. I had no idea what pain I was in for because it doesn’t all happen at one time. Over the course of several weeks, the pain started to get worse. I wasn’t able to wear my high heels to work anymore and I slowly started limping because my sciatic leg pain was so bad. I was forced to stand at my desk for 8 hours at work because I found it impossible to sit down. Driving was excruciating, living was excruciating and trying to but on a ‘nice’ face was impossible. I started with a doctor’s appointment which led to an MRI. They found a disc herniation at the L4/L5 level. I was off to physical therapy where they put me in a stretching machine which absolutely made it worse to the point I could barely walk afterwards. After no relief from this, I was sent for cortisone shots and that also did nothing. It had been a good 8 months since my herniation and working was getting close to impossible so I was impatient for a solution. The next step was a neurosurgeon to discuss open back surgery. I made the hospital appointment to have the surgery over the Christmas holiday so I wouldn’t miss so much work. During those 2 months, I was given nerve blocks to allow me to continue working but they did little for my chronic pain.

I had surgery in November 2000 by a Dr. Ho. He was the brother of the man who sang ‘tiny bubbles’ if you are old enough to know who that was. He said I had a considerable herniation and also some bone fragments irritating my sciatic nerve. Recovering from surgery those first few days was just awful but by the 3rd day in the hospital I was able to get up and move around. I had 6 weeks off at home of taking it easy and definitely started to feel like my old self again. I thought I was cured! Back then it was not common to Google your condition to find out what was wrong with you and how to fix it. I also did not understand how complex the back is and that having one surgery may lead to other surgeries down the road. I was 28 and feeling good but that time was short.

I went back to work like normal and was back in my power suits and high heels. In 2002 I took a job transfer and moved to Europe. This is where the next set of my problems began. I had several moves where I was left by myself to unpack boxes and move myself in. After meeting my now husband, I did another move to the UK for a second job transfer. I tried to move around furniture myself since we didn’t have anyone to help us. I had a flare up again like I hadn’t experienced in a long time. At the time I didn’t know what it was, but I met a guy through a massage therapist that practiced ART (active release technique). He told me I had a severe pelvic tilt and it was causing my back to go in spasm which was then irritating the nerves in my back. Through manipulation, stretching and releasing the spasm, I was able to correct my pelvic tilt and realign my spine. I was feeling good again and thought my problems were behind me. Six weeks later I found I was pregnant. This created a whole new set of problems for me to be 35 and with back problems.

After a very painful and difficult pregnancy, I had a loose SI joint, severe DDD, bursitis in my IT band and hips and spasms in my piriformis muscle causing terrible sciatic nerve pain. At the time, I was trying to get it all under control without knowing exactly what was wrong with me while trying to deal with a new baby. Shortly after my daughter was born, I got her stroller stuck in a heavy metal door while trying to leave a doctor’s appt. This was London, where there are no elevators and going out always involves heavy lifting of babies and all their ‘kit’ up and down stairs. When I got the stroller stuck in the door, I yanked hard on it and immediately felt that same hot burning sensation in my back with an instant backache similar to what I had had so many years ago. The pain continued over the weeks and just didn’t go away. I had another MRI and it was confirmed to be an annular tear at the L5/S1 level with severe DDD.

It is almost 4 years since that incident and I still haven’t managed to solve my daily chronic pain. I have had facet injections, cortisone injections, acupuncture, physical therapy, Pilates, rhizotomy’s on both sides, a nucleoplasty, prolotherapy, TENS machines, hormone therapy and like the rest of you, a conversation with a Florida clinic that said it could solve all my back pain problems.

I am in my second round of trying intense prolotherapy. I have searched high and low on the web trying to find out information on this procedure but of course it is all written pretty much by one doctor (Dr. Hauser in Chicago). I have my own experiences and because I have only finished my 2nd session, I will continue to update any followers on how I progress.

I will continue to write about my experiences and recommendations with a lot of these techniques. Some are helpful, others are useless. I know each person’s experience may be different but I do think there are clues in your body that will help you determine what is best for you. Thanks for listening…

Welcome to my club!

Hello and welcome to yet another back pain blog! You are here because you are probably searching for the same answers I am and can't find them. I am here to talk, to listen, and to share similar experiences. Let me disclaim that I am not here to offer any professional medical advice to your specific condition. I can, however, offer my opinion and some knowledge based on my own back pain experiences and history with trying everything medically and holistically available to treat my back pain condition. So here I write this blog after 12 years of still looking for answers to my chronic pain.

Let's just say I am sick of trying to read health boards looking for the perfect thread to answer my particular problem. The only thing I read is a question followed by more questions with chronic pain patients looking for answers. The people with the answers are no longer scrolling through threads on the health boards. They are out living their lives because they are no longer in pain. As for the other back pain blogs, they are ran by doctors, and chiropractors and the Laser Spine Institute. They will all happily say they can solve your pain problem instantly with their particular treatment and take your money. If you are one of the lucky ones, I congratulate you. If you are not, than please join my blog for interesting discussions and welcome to our distinguished club.