I can’t believe how early it is. I left the house at 12:45 and got back home at 3, but it feels like I was gone much longer! I got loads done.
First I picked up my weekly newspapers for the weekly job hunt/local news/laugh at the poor quality of the articles. Then I got petrol, then headed off to Castlebar for my hospital appointment regarding my back.
I actually didn’t have a long wait, surprisingly. They said I do probably have a disk issue, and sciatica, but they won’t know without an MRI. These are all things my chiropractor told me, no surprises. They also said they would set me up with ‘physio’ in the meantime, as the MRI appointment is going to take a while. So, I’m guessing the physio is physical therapy, and similar to what my chiropractor does for me. But I won’t have to pay for it. Whew. So, it’s nice to be on their radar finally, even if I haven’t learned anything new and still have no diagnosis or even a time frame. Welcome to the HSE.
Oh, here’s my x-rays. I took pics of them for my own perusal. I love being able to see inside myself. Never ending source of entertainment for me.
It’s pretty obvious that the gap #1 is a lot narrower than the rest, like #2. Most likely that’s my bad disc. Yay.
Nothing to see here, I just think it looks cool to see my innards. I have a tail, how cool is that?
Oh, after that I went and picked up dog food, had a chat with the pet shop ladies about my Brushes art and took pictures of the birds, fish and bunnies in order to have more animals to draw for my ‘portfolio.’
On the way home, I had a bit of a surprise. Tanks. Tanks and troop carriers on the side of the road! With soldiers, and guns. Cooooool. We’ve no idea what’s going on, but seeing the Irish Army camped out on the side of the road is a new one for me. I took pics on my phone, but I was really far away and the pics aren’t worth posting. And I don’t want to get in trouble. Those were big guns.
heretherebespiders 
I still have your brain here in my studio! I love xrays too. I’m loving my ultrasounds, how they can swoop around and look inside my insides and see things moving in real time. How cool is that? So glad that you’ve actually got someone to listen to you. That at least has to feel good.
Yay for my brain! That was a fabulously creepy pic. I just remembered about my sister’s 3-D baby scans, that was so strange to see!
Excellent tail.
Army has only three purposes in Ireland as far as I know (from experience of my youth)
1 – Guard money being moved between banks
2 – fill out the parade on St Patricks Day
3 – sniper duty for renegade bullocks. No seriously.
Ha! Yes, I see them guarding the money now and again. Our town is too small for them to bother with parades or cattle! Hubby says they are decommissioning the base in Castlebar and were moving the equipment. I’m doubting that one as they were heading into Castlebar, not out.
The lumbosacral joint space does look narrow, but it may or may not be your problem. I see people with disastrous-looking X-rays and MRIs whose main pain nonetheless comes from muscles. I did a video about this a while back
http://sledpress.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/celebrity-tweets-and-your-butt/
Ask the physio if there’s any reason you shouldn’t try hanging from a bar (assuming the physio doesn’t actually recommend it). My chiropractor colleague swears by this and it has helped a lot of back pain patients of his; I go to the kids’ playground and use the jungle gym, just grab the bar overhead and relax your knees so that your weight is pulling gently down on the low back. This can actually reverse disk space narrowing at least a little, over time. You can stand right up again if the pull feels like too much.
Here’s some good stuff.
http://www.squidoo.com/psoas
I’ll be interested to know particulars about what they do find and the therapy you get.
It’s Ireland, could be anything! The chiropractor has done wonders for me, but he’s self-pay (no insurance and not covered under the national health system), and he’s moving after Christmas anyway.
Interesting about the hanging idea. When I was at my worst I often thought that if I could hang upside-down I’d get some relief. I’ll have a look around the town for something I can hang from; there’s not a lot on offer around here for kids but something else might do for my height.
I’ll check the links in a bit 🙂 Thank you for the input, you didn’t have to do that!
Good luck with the “physio”. My human has had a lot of physical therapy for assorted back problems, and they’ve really been able to make a difference… Five years ago she was shopping for a service dog, and now she has less pain than ever in her life and no one would ever know that she has so much going on in her spine. I hope you have a similar outcome. (Thank goodness my human never got that service dog!)
Wow, great to hear this. When they started talking about injections wasn’t happy (as a possibility) because needles and spines shouldn’t be close friends, to me. I’m sure a service dog would have been just lovely, they are much smarter than the average canine!
In the U.S., usually they try other things before any injections. So hopefully you won’t ever have to make that choice… But if you get to that point, keep an open mind but do your own homework…
I would be all for a service dog whose job is to be in MY service – rides, light grooming, delivery of meals, etc.
That doesn’t look good at all on the x-ray. 😮
Chiropractors kill people. Stay away from them. so do surgeons. Don’t let anyone cut into your back unless it’s your last resort. take it from someone who’s been there…twice. Wish I could show you my own CT scans and X-rays. Where you have vertebrae, I have titanium. Looks like someone shoved a small Eiffel Tower up my poopchute. and it feels that way, 24/7. I’m ten years donw this road and it gets worse every day. and I still need more surgery!
Sadly nothing I’ve tried has worked for me. Not surgery, not needles, not PT, not Chiro, not stretching, working out… nothing. But really everyone is different. Until they can definitively say WHY I hurt, they can’t fix it. This next surgery is a must. I didn’t want to do it, but considering everything is getting worse and there is a bone spur dangerously near a nerve bundle I really have no choices left.
The trick is that there are SO many different problems and everyone has different fixes. I know people who swear by Chiro or PT. Some people the injection works for.
IF you have to do the injection and they offer you a sedative…take it. I can handle pain, but the injection is just so…wrong. It hurts and is an amazing amount of pressure in the wrong place. I really wanted a sedative the second time, but I wasn’t offered. 😦
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you don’t have to go down the surgery road.
I know I’m not as bad as you, or Mike above: not even close. Humans may be bipedal, but we aren’t good at it. Basic design flaw… I’m just pissed off that I should get it free, like everyone else here, but they lost me for so long. I’ll avoid shots as long as I can!
My thoughts on it is, maybe other people have it worse, but what’s wrong with you is still horrible to you. 😉
It’s lame that you aren’t getting free care when you live in a place that have free care. Medical costs are horrible. Even with insurance we spend a lot of money.