Health Problems

Sludig said:

More of a Jimmy rustle. But I hate at 37 I moved to the country, have a mini farm, best shape I've been in a while, but my herniated disc I had a discectomy on in 17 is back 26th a vengeance.


Can barely get up from sitting in certain chairs. wake up very painful with sciatic leg/butt cheek pain. Hit the point of some taser like painfull shocks up my hole back when bending or twisting just right, often when flexing my back as I sit into a chair or get up from a crouch.


last dr said I'd get worse someday and probably need a fusion. Think I'm there but had hoped for it to be in my 40s

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I've gone through this before. What do you mean by "had a discectomy on in 17 is back 26th"? You had a discectomy in 2017? What's 26?

Which level is it on, lumbar/thoracic/cervical? I'm guessing lumbar if sitting in chairs is an issue with sciatica.

Fusion is very likely going to be needed, yeah. Unfortunately fusion isn't the cure-all doctors present it as either. I had L4/L5 herniate and L5/S1 herniate to the point of outright leaking (I landed on that area a bunch). Got a discectomy on the lowest one and it actually helped...for about a year and a half, until one day when I twisted wrong while diving through the air (don't ask) and that was that. Then they decided to do fusion on two levels because the one above it had also gotten worse as well. There was another option, a sort of "imitation disc" that they can replace your disc with, and a lot of people find that vastly preferable to fusion, but they're more experimental and they tend to go bad after five years.

I can't testify as to how effective that is but I will say they've likely gotten better over time. Fusion is the same as it ever was and it actually kind of sucks, so don't believe doctors if they give you flowery projections. Just hope for the best and don't expect it to fix everything. The stiffness is very noticeable and supposedly it can contribute to sexual dysfunction, though if it does it's sporadic. At least you only have to do a one-level fusion instead of two, from the sound of it.

Also, don't spend long hours sitting in chairs in the first few months after a fusion. Walking a lot is ideal. Sitting a lot will just cause a lot of pain and might even mess with it, I don't know. I'd go from laying down to walking, but I didn't walk as much as I should have and actually got kind of weak over the 9 month recovery. Oh yeah, and most importantly, try not to develop a painkiller addiction. They'll pour those on you during fusion recovery (or at least they did 15 years ago). You really only "need" them for the first two weeks or so, and even that's long enough to develop a dependency. There are a lot of risks of turning into (more of) an asshole during this recovery process, between not being able to do much, possibly being on pills, possibly having to withdraw from pills, and so on. You can end up not "yourself" and driving off the nearest woman (or at least making her miserable) without even realizing it.

I'm sure there's a better way to do all of this than a fusion, fusion sucks all around. Yoga gurus and expert chiropractors might be able to get rid of a lot of the symptoms but it'll take time, cooperation and a lot of money, while fusion is more of a "just get it done" situation. Be prepared to take like 3 weeks off of work though and like I said you want to be really careful for about 9 months, no twisting.

Srathor said:

You get to your 40's, some friends start dying. You might start dying. After 6 heart surgeries, 4 heart attacks including a triple bypass, more god damn pills than any human should ever have to take. I have come to the conclusion of, god damn I miss my 20's.
Be careful folks. Life is here, to kill you.

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An older guy I knew once told me "youth is wasted on the young". A couple years later he died of cancer and I started to understand what he meant. Fast forward about 15 years and I really understand what he meant.

My latest health problem: Cold sweats. I'm tired all the time and the cold sweats have gotten to be a 24/7 thing (before the past month they were frequent bouts, not continuous). I know my diet and exercise could both be better, but it's hard to keep those good when my sleep isn't good. My sleep hasn't been good for at least two years, between my debilitating insomnia and my cat waking me up early every morning. I've had him since he fit in my hand (rescued him from a barn where they didn't know where he came from and didn't want him around) so I'm not getting rid of him, but in his old age (he's almost 15) he's become a real fusser in the morning where he used to just let me sleep. And the state of the country/future is likely behind the crippling insomnia. Sometimes, especially on weekends and if I'm staying somewhere away from home, I'll get a full 9 hour sleep in, but I usually don't feel rested after even those.

So basically I've become more of a mess in 2023. Either way these cold sweats are worrisome. It's to the point where I wake up with zero energy and have a tough time just getting dressed and feeding myself. After an hour or two I start to gin up some energy and roll through the day, but the beginning of the day is always difficult. And I'm always cold and frequently clammy now. It's to the point that if I had a GF currently I imagine she'd be finding it pretty unpleasant. I once briefly dated a girl who could get cold and clammy and she said she had... Enlo-Dahmler's Syndrome which I'm probably spelling wrong. She had a lot more going on than I do though, so I don't think it's that. Going to get thyroid checked and whatever else I can think of.

The older I get the more I realize the importance of sleep and how I should have taken it seriously much sooner. This is a pretty great list of simple things that I’ve been working to improve on for my sleep health. Toolkit for Sleep

Sludig said:

Low back herniated disc I had trimmed in 2017. Ripe ol age of late 30's.

Back to having issues, not crippling, but daily pain and affecting able to work well as my gun belt really aggravates it and not to mention my hobby farm randomly hurting it.


Doc said they could do another trim but another stop gap, I loathe the injections didnt do shit for me first time anyways. But basically recommendation is total disc replacement. I'm all for it, though queesy at basically having a C section as they go in from the front to do it.

View attachment 486725

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Oh yeah, that's L5/S1, the same one I got (well the worse of the two). They told me they didn't have to go from the front, just that it would be "easier" if they did.

Speaking from experience, them going in through the front fucking sucks and I wish I could go back and do it over again. Had a giant scar on my abs from my late 20's onward which raised a lot of questions at the beach, or every time a girl got my shirt off. Then my abs themselves gradually just went away because I couldn't do crunches and I had this weird C-section thing going on. Also the front scar is huge, and my organs in that area have felt "off" ever since.

Worst part is that the scar is still totally numb over a decade later, and sometimes it starts "itching" and CANNOT BE SCRATCHED. Like the itch is under the scar or something like that. I found that slapping it really hard was the only way to kind of get to the itch. Taking a lot of showers seems to help. Go without a shower at all and the itching starts. Sometimes it just starts anyway regardless, especially if I'm on any meds that can have itchiness as a side effect (which happen to be the same meds they give you for these issues).

See if they'll give you an alternative with pros and cons. Another back scar isn't that big of a deal when you already have multiple from a discectomy.

Frenzied Wombat said:

L5/S1? Who fucked it up the first time and was it a micro-discotomy? Is this guy an orthopedic surgeon or neurosurgeon? It's been about five years since I discussed it with my retired neurosurgeon stepdad, but at the time he had a very negative opinion of the new man made disc replacements. Some rant along the lines of "it's not some fucking simple mechanical part some butcher (his word for orthopedic surgeon) can just cram in like a hip replacement".

I had my L5/S1 done like 25 years ago. It can definitely flare up now and then if I sleep in a shitty bed or act like a dumbass and lift heavy shit. There's no avoiding the degenerative arthritis you develop from them trimming the disc, which is what I have now, but if it's full failure either they didn't do it right, or you've just been abusing it over the years. Is a fusion not a possibility?

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What's the degenerative arthritis like? I get frequent pains between the shoulderblades (upper thoracic) that are annoying as hell, and sometimes I get lower-down pains (lower thoracic) that basically locks up my entire spine. The lower pains happen if I sleep too flat and the upper pains happen if I sleep too raised (head and shoulders). I think it might be degenerative arthritis.

Frenzied Wombat said:

How big are the stones? They can see ones as small as 1mm on a CT scan. I passed a 5mm stone a few years ago and it was basically 30 days of hell with on and off sweat inducing pain. When I went into the ER with the worst pain of my life, they told me they could either remove it tomorrow style, or I could let it pass naturally. I LOL'd and said I'm ready to sit on a grenade if it ends the pain, so bring on the shock wave machine. But nononono of course, it was in a place where they couldn't use the shock wave machine, and would instead have to use what sounded like a plumber's snake with a carnival claw on the end to fish it out. I said no fucking way and they gave me 30 days to pass it or I get The Claw. Never drank so much water in my life those thrity days.

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Do you know at what points the shock wave machine might have the best chance of success? Like maybe catching it early?

Sludig said:

First time was a micro disc yes and I was largely symptom free since 2017, occasional aches or if I pushed myself too far it would kinda flare up. certain hard ass things like church pews trigger a lot of sciatic pain.

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People don't realize the horror of church pews for someone with an injury. It has kept me out of church because I can't sit on one for more than like 5 minutes without ruining the rest of my day. Weddings are also something I no longer look forward to. Not sure why they had to make church pews so ungodly hard.

ToeMissile said:

The older I get the more I realize the importance of sleep and how I should have taken it seriously much sooner. This is a pretty great list of simple things that I’ve been working to improve on for my sleep health. Toolkit for Sleep

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Yeah this is really good, I see several things on the list that I'm doing wrong.