The Discomfort Thread

Quote: petroglyph

AZ. IMO, stones consist of different materials. The most common one is Calcium. And I think it was Flea who said how is your hydration? I have read the calcium stones are caused by either a lack of calcium [many different kinds of calcium] or a raging lack of calcium? Not all stones show on scans.

My hydration is generally very good. I drink plenty of water. The stones seem to come during periods of higher stress.

Quote: rxwine

I think it's the same for much of the body. Fractures can heal without casts or splints. I've done it myself, as long the bones are in the right place. OTOH, you keep bashing an area beyond reason, the body says FUMF, you aint's gettin' shit from me, stay a cripple then.

Quote: AZDuffman

A lot of it is a thin line. Part of the problem is we live in a society where you think everything is supposed to work perfect 100% of the time and any kind of discomfort is unacceptable.

...

Back to the point, some people see their lives and wonder why it is not what they see on TV. They look for some way to improve it, and find it in a bottle of booze, pills, or both.

Both are completely spot on. It's different as a yute. While your body is still developing, most injuries just get caught up in the development. Brain injuries are worse as a youngin', but stuff like bones and muscles just get swept up in the mad dash to adulthood that they get almost entirely erased. I broke my collarbone at 12 and don't have one single hangover from it, other than the tiniest little bulge in the bone. No pain, no loss of function, nothing. It's a lot like concrete. Ruin it when it's wet and you can trowel it back to new, like nothing ever happened. Ruin it after it's dry and all the patches in the world won't never make it the same again.

Once that winds down, you're in the shit. And that was a hard lesson to learn. I've always hurt, because I've always been at least a two sport athlete, and I always go balls out. But "pain", as I knew it for ten years, was extremely temporary. Something would hurt when I woke up, but I'd be limber by the time I got dressed. By the time I rode my bike to the practice field, I was 100%, as springy and spry as ever. When I started really breaking stuff in my early 20's I had a lot of difficulty. I couldn't understand why I wasn't going back to 100% anymore. It was a very difficult thing. I suffered a lot of anger, a lot of depression, and I did abuse the pain meds a bit, in the early days. Especially breaking my hand was tough to deal with. I lost so much function, and so much of what I did back then required dexterity. I couldn't play bass anymore, couldn't play piano anymore, kept dropping small parts and tools. It was a hard lesson to learn. At 34, I'm starting to catch on. Maybe by 50 I'll have it knicked ;)

Quote: odiousgambit

Wow, Face, I don't know if I can post my back pain thing after reading your input. Well, OK, I know you will say I should, so I will. But I will say in advance, I am just 'being a big baby ' and should man up probably, so pay no attention to what I will write and let's admit you are the guy with the problem back here. Man, sorry to hear that.

Of course I will =) No worries about a "competition". The worst pain is the pain you yourself deal with.

Quote: OG

And thanks for writing about it, some good stuff here, including about dependence and addiction. You seem to be on top of all that, but beware, we are all notoriously the worst judges - self examination when it comes to booze and drugs has a bad record. Something I am pondering as my back pain responds amazingly well to bourbon. Not-LOL. Dead serious and my drinking is now a double-down. My self-evaluation of that? No problem! What other conclusion does a drug/booze self evaluation ever lead to?

Good points, and wise advice. I do find reflection is very helpful in this regard. It is difficult, even if you're good at it, to judge yourself in the moment. But I do find it very easy to judge your own past. I remember at the start of my vike usage feeling totally justified taking 3 a day. After all, it says right on the bottle I could, and the doctor said I could, and I was using it for the reasons described on the label. Looking back, it's easy to see I was relying on them too heavily, and doing what AZD said - assuming I had a "right" to feel "perfect".

Constant reflection and self examination got my to where I am today, and I can say with almost certainty that my danger of addiction to vikes, despite my long and storied past, is almost non-existent. I have literally no urge whatsoever to take them outside of the times I have prescribed myself, which, as I said earlier, is times of pain when I know I'm going to be active. I hurt right now sitting at the computer. I wouldn't take one if I had a thousand in the cupboard. In the last five years, I've never taken more than one a day, the only exception is hockey tournaments, when I have two games in one day and four in a weekend. In those times, I never take more than 2 a day. Even the long physical exertion days of fishing tournaments or BVI sailing, it's one a day. I never take 10's, and always tell the doc flat out I'll only accept 5's (milligrams). Anytime 2 days in a row don't give me the relief I seek, I always, without fail, start my clean weeks. I've never sought them out on the black market (though I have accepted some from family who no longer need them; no sense in paying the copay if I don't have to =p) About the only thing I do that could be considered "abuse" is I do drink on them, since hockey and vikes and hockey and beer all go hand in hand. And when fishing, I'll totally take one with beer, to give me that extra whack of pain killing. But I hardly drink to excess (travel tournaments aside =p), so respiratory arrest ain't something I ever worry about.

The desire, the urge, the compulsion, it's just not there, and that's what addiction is. Dependency, sure. I get the withdrawal symptoms of dry sinuses and itchy skin. It's hardly "bad" and it's gone in a day or two. No problem. Plus, while I do enjoy feeling "good" and find the burst of energy useful, I don't like the rest of the side effects. They make me jittery, ruin orgasms, they dry me out terribly, and they often give me just a touch of a headache. That stuff is worth removing the knife in my back, but it's not worth just having a "good time" whenever I feel like it. Plus, the fact that I get 50-100 pills at a clip and only need a refill once every 6 months or so keeps the docs happy, as many people go through 200 pills a month. Happy docs means getting a script is as easy as asking, and since it is the only way I can come close to being "pain free", it's a resource I don't want to lose.

You use booze? Gotta do what you gotta do. Chronic pain is a terrible thing that will sap your very will to live. But realize, and realize it right now, that yours is a temporary solution, just as my vikes are. From this second on, it's going to work less and less. Even if it's just your own brand of "clean weeks", you're going to need a backup plan and should start making one now.

Well, here it goes - nothing like Face deals with.

With some difficulty I will not make this a post about the gardening device invented by Satan: the wheelbarrow. But I really have to ask, what does a wheelbarrow do that a wagon does not do better? I want to go on ‘hating on’ wheelbarrows but will stop. Maybe a blog post.

So, about a month ago, started buying some yard stuff, including some heavy bags of soil and gravel. Foolishly, I decided to use Satan’s Device to move these items. The foolishness started when a couple of years ago I bought the infernal thing[oh, it’s hard not to ruin this post with a rant]I am totally convinced now the particular stress put on my back did me in, not lifting the bags in and out of the pickup truck. I felt no effects that day or the next morning getting up. But as I was putting on my shirt that next morning, a muscle spasm in the middle of my bag nearly brought me to my knees.

Whenever I’ve had back problems, this is the area that it usually hits. In the past, I have gotten over them quickly ... I’ve been told it’s just muscles, something to be glad about, if it is the lower back or the neck, it might be more serious. So, though I was in pain, I was happy about where it hit.

So, after a few days, I started to wonder wtf? It doesn’t seem to be much better. And every morning, stabbing pain between the shoulder blades after I get up out of bed. The night probably went OK, but the mornings will be awful. It’s like somebody is stabbing me with an ice-pick. Or a knife and twisting the knife.

“Morning Back” I call it. And I still have it.

I took aspirin like crazy; I tolerate aspirin fairly well, whereas so many people tell me they can’t take it or it’s bye-bye stomach. But I’m good normally, although I admit taking so many has a weird feeling take over the “lower track” some time later - can’t be good. Ibuprofen, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be as effective. I would take big doses of the aspirin, 5 at a time at first, and believe me that is what it takes. By late morning, the back would be better. By late afternoon, the pain is returning. It’s just a weird pattern holding through today as well [back was awful this morning]. Now I use Aleve though.

Alcohol is the other thing that alieviates the pain. In fact, I go ahead and use booze for the pain in the late afternoon as we usually have our little cocktail hour anyway starting then. Bourbon, especially, seems to work quite well. If I dose it right, it eliminate the pain completely. This is slightly amusing to everyone of course, except my wife takes exception to the stiff drinks sometimes that she sees me making. Gin, I have found, is hard to dose right, and she was pissed when I tried to use Gin and over-stepped. Bourbon I seem to dose right.

Let me say that again: if I dose it right, it gets rid of the pain completely and before I get socially-unacceptable-smashed too. Nothing else does that.

I can say my back is better. When I get the pain, it is not quite as sharp; before, it would sometimes take my breath away. I continue to do light things with the back, such as the small amount of stress that lawn-mowing gives, or lifting various items that aren’t excessively heavy. And, again, I have switched to Aleve per someone’s recommendation - I don’t have to take such a huge dose as with aspirin, and it does seem to be longer lasting relief as advertised. The label does not say it is Ibuprofen btw.

I have to conclude it is something more than muscle this time. But why go to the doctor? What can they do? No way am I getting back surgery, I adhere to an old buddy’s advice: do not get back surgery unless it gets so bad you literally can’t get out of bed in the morning.

Frankly, I have no idea how to properly load and utilize a wheel barrow and make the tool carry the weight not my muscles.

Aspirin toleration... for pain perhaps but not for the cummulative effect on your heart.

Dentist... The old man's friend is really oral bacteria that have migrated to the airway and taken hold. Certain types of Atrial Fibrillation appear to be bacterial also.

Quote: Fleastiff

Frankly, I have no idea how to properly load and utilize a wheel barrow and make the tool carry the weight not my muscles.

Assuming I am not missing a joke here, you load it as much on and in front of the wheel as possible. Met mill guys who had to wheel really heavy ore to the open hearth. Said that was key.

I have bursitis in both hips so it's painful
when I walk. There's no treatment, except
not walking. I use a cane sometimes, if I
have to walk any distance. My biggest
fear is falling because I can't get back up.
I need to be near something like a chair,
or the bumper of a car, to push myself back
up.

I'm in my 60's, it's common to lose muscle
mass in the thighs, Couple that with the
bursitis and I'm screwed if I fall. No meds
except for BP and I've been taking that for
20 years. A coated aspirin a day for the last
10 years. I sound lucky compared to some
of you guys. It's like AZD says, to be human
is to be in pain for a lot of people, you get
used to it. Sitting here typing I feel no pain
at all, so guess what I do too much of.

Oh, and I take meds for gout, but it works so
well I never have issues anymore so I don't
think about it. Gout is about a 10 on the pain
scale, it's really quite hard to believe unless
you've experienced it.

Quote: Evenbob

I have bursitis in both hips

I've had one hip with bursitis for a while. Very painful but got better and no problems for years now.

Have you been told you need hip replacement?

Quote: odiousgambit

Have you been told you need hip replacement?

Wouldn't do it unless I was crippled. My
brother in law had both replaced and it
was a nightmare. Too late to die young,
I'll stick with what I've got.

Quote: AZDuffman

Assuming I am not missing a joke here, you load it as much on and in front of the wheel as possible. Met mill guys who had to wheel really heavy ore to the open hearth. Said that was key.

Yup, or get one with the wheel more centered.

http://www.wayfair.com/Lifetime-Wheelbarrow-65034-L3776-K~LXT1108.html?refid=GX50899304700-LXT1108&device=c&ptid=75689826060&gclid=CO2frci6sMUCFQpk7Aodt3IA9g

Look at the top one, then a few photos below all the standard ones. It's crazy when you think about how much load you carry on your back, if you were carrying dirt in the standard design.

Quote: rxwine

Yup, or get one with the wheel more centered.
.

As with any vehicle you load, 80% of
the weight should be over the axle
on a single axle setup, or between the
axles on a double axle. On a wheel
barrow, most of the weight goes in the
front. Otherwise you're working against yourself.