Joe’s BodyBlog

So this morning I met with the PT to go over the exercise and stretches I should do for my back. I am pleased to say that what I am already doing is what he wanted me to do. So although my results don’t show it, I do know something about exercising and keeping healthy! He only added a few stretches to hit my hamstrings, hip flexors and inner abdominals from different angles to get a fuller range of motion/stretch going for them. He pointed out that my profession as a computer guy works against my lower back health. I already knew this, but sometimes it is good to hear what others have to say. Now I just need to keep up with all of the stretching as part of my regular work out. Oh and the other thing that was a reinforcement that I had a clue about what I was doing, was that I told him what my workout is, and he didn’t object to anything I am doing.  Again good for me. I have another appointment next week, except we are going to do some deep tissue massage work for that one to try and get my back to chill out.

I am working really hard to change how bad my back is, with acupuncture, chiropractic and now PT as well as everything else I am doing, this better work. I don’t need or want another surgery, so I have to stay consistent to take care of myself. So far I am doing ok, but I could kick it up a notch…

So yesterday I mentioned that I had herniations in my MRI according to the Radiologist’s report. But that the Dr. I saw said the disks were bulging, not herniated, so that is why he recommend a conservative approach to my treatment and not surgery. Also because there wasn’t any nerve compression, and no immediate danger. I went to see my Chiropractor today and he agreed with the Dr. but he didn’t agree with the radiologist, basically because as he put it, "The radiologist reviews MRI with out any patient history or an exam, they look at the MRI and compare it to a TEXTBOOK version of the clean MRI for the lumbar spine. Where we (the doctors) can view the patient in the exam room and use the exam combined with the MRI to fully diagnose the issue at hand". Lucky for me, I have been around medical people all my life so I was prepared for this. The fun part will be when I get my third opinion from a spine surgeon at UNC..

I had an adjustment this am and I felt much better. I start my PT with the first Dr. tomorrow, then I have a Chiropractic adjustment set up for Thursday and acupuncture for  Thursday evening. I am going at the aggressively from a non surgical standpoint right now, I need to move forward to feeling better. I will not let this affect/ruin my life or quality of life! To that end I am still working out, just check my Workout Tracker!!

So last Wednesday I went to see one of my doctors and go over my MRI. Since this issues has been bothering me for a long time now, I decided to see many doctors then I will formulate my plan for my rejuvenated health. The report came back with two disk herniations, between the L4/L5 and L5/S1 disks. The L5/S1 is minor, but the L4/L5 might be the cause of all of my back issues. My strength and flexibility (or lack there of) are not helping my situation. But since I usually feel better when I exercise the Doctor considers that encouraging. Right now this first doctor feels I should take a conservative approach, and stick with the non-surgical methods of treating my back pain that I am already doing. But they thought I should speak with the Physical Therapist about what I am already doing and then make a plan in case I am missing something. I am going to meet with this person on Wednesday of this week and I am going to bring them my workout an my stretching (Yoda/Pilates) routines so we can go over them together.  I also have signs of degenerative disk disease, which is somewhat normal for someone my age who has had back issues most of his life. Of course the disks in question are the ones where there are already issues. They also suggested I take some steroids for 6 days to calm my nerves down, but I haven’t filled that prescription yet. I want to wait until I get all of the opinions and decide if it is necessary. If I take them and they don’t help the next step is an Epidural Spinal Injection.
Tomorrow I go back to my Chiropractor and get his opinion on my back. I am interested if he will treat me any differently now that he has seen my MRI. It will also be interesting to get his opinion on what I should/shouldn’t be doing.

My regular orthopedic Doctor (bad sign that I have a regular Orthopedic) is helping me get into another Doctor at the spine center where he works. I will then have my third opinion on my back. After that I will decide my best course of action for my health.

In the meantime I am still going to the Chiropractor and  Acupuncturist to help with the pain management.

Thanksgiving diet went to hell very quickly. I have no will power for the once a year items like sweet potato casserole, stuffing, mash potatoes, and of course pumpkin and Apple pies.. I made the Turkey so it was clean, but I had some gravy on my stuffing and taters, so that killed me just a little bit… It wouldn’t have been so bad except here is what I did, instead of just having one bad meal I went overboard and had a few bad meals.  For instance, I had the main meal on Thursday with gravy, then I added a piece of pumpkin pie with Lite Cool whip. On Friday I had another plate with gravy, and another piece of pumpkin pie. Later on Friday night I topped off my night with a Beer at the hockey game (large beer so actually 2 beers!) and then came home and had a piece of apple pie before bed. Saturday for lunch I had a plate of leftovers, but with a ham sandwich instead of turkey and one more piece of pumpkin pie. To finish off my weekend and to get rid of the last of the pie in my house for dessert after eating a very clean dinner I ate one piece of pumpkin and one piece of apple pie. So there it is 6 pieces of pie over 4 days. Thank God I kept working out over the weekend. I did my weights on Thursday and Friday with cardio, then on Sunday did over 40 minutes of Cardio and stretching.

So this morning I had my MRI. They don’t bother me, some people can’t handle the whole being inside a tube for tests. But I am not claustrophobic, so now worries for me. I spoke to my Ortho right after, he said he would call me once he had a chance to review them, which is fine. I am not in a rush, unless it is good news! But the guy only has office hours two days a week, so I will probably here from him later today or tonight. The cool thing is that since I am going to a back specialist on Wednesday they gave me a copy of the MRI on disk to bring with me to my appointment. I have looked at the MRI, of course I have no clue what to look for, but I used the web to find MRI’s of disk issues and compared them. So far to my VERY Untrained eye, everything looks good. But I won’t place a lot of hope on my reading of the MRI.

I had a good workout over the weekend, but I had a crappy weekend as a whole. My personal life sucks right now. Not much more to say about that, except being the person I am, I will not let it get me down and I will endure!

So this week I found the workout tracker which was added to Bodyspace. I admit, I am loving it. One of my (many) flaws is my lack of consistency, the workout tracker gives me a way to do better at keeping myself consistent. Granted the onus is really on me to do the workout, but I have something I can go back and look through to see if I am making gains, keeping up with my workouts etc.

So I want to thank BB.com for developing this feature of the site. As a fellow Web/Database developer I think that is really cool.

Ok so now here is the BUT, part of this. A very nice enhancement to the workout tracker would be a place to put in Cardio workouts! I know Cardio for some is a bad word and all, but for those of us who are trying to lose fat it is essential that we can track our Cardio workouts just like our weight training. So besides writing this to my blog, I am going to "request" it as an enhancment to the BB.com staff..

So I decided this am to take some progress pics. I think I need to get a tripod, because I don’t like the bathroom based myspace pictures… But my wife wasn’t around to help me out, so I had to improvise. The reason I don’t like the myspace type of pictures is because I don’t feel like I can get a full "picture" of my progress while struggling to work the camera and in the mirror to get my angle that I want. But I hadn’t taken any pictures since our other camera died so I figured WTH and did it.

What did these pictures really show me? First they showed me what I said yesterday, I need to add more cardio to my workout. I am not losing fat the way I should be (check the abs shot ). In fact I haven’t lost a single pound in two weeks, so that is not a good sign. But this isn’t an all negative assessment of myself, I feel like my upper body is progressing, my arms, shoulders and back feel really good. My chest is lacking in showing muscularity, but I know that will come in time. I need to be patient. Eventually when my cut is done, I will add some muscle, but I need to continue with the cut while I deal with getting my back healthy.

This isn’t a sprint it is a marathon, so I have to be patient.

So I had an awesome workout yesterday. It was Back, Bi’s and Legs day and I feel like I had a great workout. I am sore today, but I expected that, since last week I only did some cardio work. I am terrible about getting my butt up in the am, I have to work on that, so that I can workout in the AM then get my butt into work. I need to break this bad habit.. but this isn’t the first time I have posted something about this issue with me .

My back is feeling pretty good right now. No more leg pain. I have seen my chiropractor 3 times since he suggested I get an MRI to make sure I am ok. This morning he gave me a great adjustment and I feel really good. My back is sore, but I believe it is from my workout, not from my old injury.  He for warned me that most MRI’s show lower back disc issues even in healthy backs, so I need to be sure to get other opinions (of course he would be one of them). I feel comfortable with his insight, he was going to be a surgeon but has issues with all of the blood and decided to be a Chiropractor instead. I can respect that.

I have a second opinion Dr. already lined up. He happens to be a friend of my wife. She met him at the Hockey games (GO Carolina Hurricanes!), and he works for the Carolina Back institute. So I spoke with him the other night about the issues I have been having - not in detail since we were at the game - and then set up the appointment.

I have to admit that fact that I can do most things that I want to physically without pain makes me feel pretty good. Heck this all could be something as simple as getting a new mattress, but I would rather have the tests done to make sure of where my body stands. My wife is nervous that I will need surgery, but she is comforted by the fact that I am still working out and not complaining much….

I noticed yesterday that I am doing a horrible job watching when and how much I eat, the what has been pretty good, not 100% clean but at least 85%. So besides correcting the 15% I think I need to up my cardio. So besides doing my cardio (Sprints and either the stir master or elliptical  post workout) I am going to add more for my off days. I really need to burn the fat and feed my muscles!

So my Chiropractor suggested I speak with my Orthopedic about my back. He feels that after 3 months if this was just a muscle issue it should have resolved itself by now. It makes me nervous at the possibility of having something more serious going on with my back. I do not want yet another surgery. I would be 3 for 3 in surgeries per year… I sent all of my information to my Ortho so we will see what he says. He is not a back guy per se, so I might end up having to see someone else anyway, but he can get me into see someone faster and get an MRI done if it is needed. Man this sucks!

So yesterday my brother called me up and tried to convince me to do a Triathlon with him for Team in Training. I have to admit I was intrigued, I mean what a challenge. Then he started going into details about what one he was doing etc. First it is in Hawaii (VERY COOL), but second you have to raise $5700 (OUCH), third since I only started really running last month I don’t know that my knee or back could take the training. But it is something I will keep in mind for the future. Instead I told him I will use his training as inspiration to keep myself on track for my goals . Oh and you have to pay for all of your own expenses to get to Hawaii, my brother lives in San Diego, I live outside Raleigh NC, I can’t really see that happening.. Also, my brother and I have completely different body types. He is built like my Father small frame, light weight, where I am built like my maternal grandfather with a larger frame. Or as my other brother says we have all three versions of genetics in us - Small (Greg- San Diego), Medium (Me) and Large (The oldest of my parents kids…). What I mean by this is I am at least 20 lbs out of shape, while my brother is in great shape. He runs 5 miles a day at a 7 mph pace on the treadmill. I can’t even get close to that. I mean after 20 minutes my knee is killing me from being so tired.
There are another couple of factors that are influencing me not to do this with him, mostly financial which sucks since this is for charity. If you don’t raise the $5700 or you raise part of it, you have to pay for it out of your own pocket. I just can’t afford that. My brother is in sales, he makes a lot in his commissions and well I work for a government contractor, I make good money but nothing like he does. I have done work for this charity before so I know what it takes to help them out plus TNT is a great cause. Blood Cancers are horrible, I lost my father to cancer and most of the people we worked with in the past were just kids and it broke my heart to hear what they have gone through, a lot of them don’t make it, but a few do and that is really important to remember when doing something like this. Every dollar goes into the research so that is what really matters.

On another note, I woke up in terrible pain this am. My back is just so fudged up it is killing me. I am going to the Dr. today to see if I need some films taken. I am concerned there is something more than muscular going on. My legs  had some numbness in them when I first woke up, but once I moved around they were fine. I think I just slept wrong, but I need to make sure.