so frustrated with my back
I feel your pain. My boyfriend and daughters have picked up the extra duties for me. I usually ride in the cart because any prolonged standing will end badly! I have undergone 4 RFA in my lower back and 2 hip injections and one epidural. I am better off most of the time. It really sucks when sleep hurts! I try to count my blessings and think of people who are worse off than myself.
Hang in there Kelly at least we are still mobile! :)
Hang in there Kelly at least we are still mobile! :)
I am currently at 130 lbs 10 pounds below goal weight!
I know it's hard & I feel for ya! even in times where you get frustrated, remember you are an independant & self-reliant woman in so many other aspects of life!
First ultra: Stone Mill 50 miler 11/15/14 13:44:38, First Full Marathon: Marine Corps 10/27/13 4:57:11, Half Marathon PR 2:04:43 at Shamrock VA Beach Half-Marathon, 12/2/12 First Half-Marathon 2:32:47, 5K PR Run Under the Lights 5K 27:23 on 11/23/13, 10K PR 52:53 Pike's Peek 10K 4/21/13, (1st timed run) Accumen 8K 51:09 10/14/12.
perhaps you could find a reacher ting, i have seen them, or perhaps a canning thing that you use when you can jars...the lifter thing..that would fit in your purse and then use that little bit of extra reach when you need it and it would be a bit sturdy for say the yogurts...you would maybe still have to bend a little, but not as much with out having that in your purse....
i have seen the extended things for olders folks, but they just dont seem that sturday....
just a thought..sorry to hear you are still having problems with your back...i had 2 nerve blocks injections and they helped tremdous..it was given with a xray....so they could see where to shoot the injection stuff...
debby
i have seen the extended things for olders folks, but they just dont seem that sturday....
just a thought..sorry to hear you are still having problems with your back...i had 2 nerve blocks injections and they helped tremdous..it was given with a xray....so they could see where to shoot the injection stuff...
debby
Hugs Kelly! It is very frustrating when you just want to do something yourself and can't. Yes, it sounds simple, just ask for sme help. But asking isn't the problem! It's knowing we can do it but our body stops us. Please know that there are plenty of us that have been, or are in your position and we do understand!
Oh man, i know exactly how u feel I am going through that right now. I have had back problems for a long long time and it has slowly been getting worse with the extra weight ive been carrying and 2 pregnancies and 2 epidural shots.
this week i had to call out twice from work from excruciating back pain and i feel like my fiance thinks im exagerating and I hate that.
i worked out on Sunday and was in some pain for the rest of the day. when i woke up the next morning and got up i collapsed from the pain, it was the worst pain ive possibly ever experienced. it got a bit better by wednesday and i went to work. today was back to horrible pain when i woke up to take a shower i had to sit on the toilet fully clothed due to the pain. i started sweating and feeling dizzy and short of breath. i feel tons better than i did this morning now.
the thing is i invested in my mattress and it is firm and i do the things i hear help like laying on my side with a pillow between my legs or laying flat with a pillow under my knees and i still wake up in so much pain.
i was hoping that this surgery would help with that but it doesnt seem like its true for everyone. is there any vitamin i can take to strengthen my bones/spine and prevent further damage to my back?
this week i had to call out twice from work from excruciating back pain and i feel like my fiance thinks im exagerating and I hate that.
i worked out on Sunday and was in some pain for the rest of the day. when i woke up the next morning and got up i collapsed from the pain, it was the worst pain ive possibly ever experienced. it got a bit better by wednesday and i went to work. today was back to horrible pain when i woke up to take a shower i had to sit on the toilet fully clothed due to the pain. i started sweating and feeling dizzy and short of breath. i feel tons better than i did this morning now.
the thing is i invested in my mattress and it is firm and i do the things i hear help like laying on my side with a pillow between my legs or laying flat with a pillow under my knees and i still wake up in so much pain.
i was hoping that this surgery would help with that but it doesnt seem like its true for everyone. is there any vitamin i can take to strengthen my bones/spine and prevent further damage to my back?
10 lbs lost pre op 
You need to work on squatting down instead of bending over. It helps alot. It isn't the most natural thing to do, but it is better for your back. Sorry your back is bothering you again.
Sandy
HW 225, SW 219, GW 140, CW 124
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!
Oh Kelly, I so totally understand your situation and I get it.
Let me share some of my back story that I don't think I've shared before with you or on here.
I mentioned that I herniated some disks in my back. This is when I was in college. I was living in a furnished college-approved apartment (they had very strict requirements to be approved, and you had to live in approved housing if you were single.... rigid requirements for BYU a religious institution)
My landlords decided to recarpt the apartments and even though it really wasn't cool to do it, they pretty much mandated that we, the tenants move the furniture out of the living room and into the tile-floor kitchen. My two less-favorite roomies didn't want to do it, so absented themselves for the day, my favorite roomate (later was matron of honor at my wedding) was preparing for her wedding so had to be out of town also. This left the job to me. I was also planning on being her maid of honor at her wedding.
So I moved the furniture. A living room full of furniture. I was immobile by the end of the day. I couldn't move at all. I couldn't get anything done. Couldn't attend my classes, could barely hobble to the bathroom. I had only the university health insurance which was good for flu or yeast infections or litle things like that, but no good for emergencies. On the day my favorite roommie returned from her bridal errands, I finally had to face it. I wasn't getting better, and I had gotten so incapable of movement, I knew I wouldn't mke it back to the restroom again. How in the world would I manage? I weighed about 300 at the time too. My roomie called 911. (I should mention that my roommie took my car for all the errands she did, we shared it). The ambulance men had difficulties getting me from my half-basement level apartment. In fact, just after they got me out of the stairwell, they dropped me about five feet. (yeah, dropped me).
I've always believed in being pleasant. I've always admired nurses for their most awful of jobs they do. I remember the ER at the hospital (The hospital was literally across the street from my apartment). The nurses wouldn't believe my pain was bad because I was trying to smile and put a good face on it (and was in SERIOUS bladder distress because I hadn't urinated in something like 18 hours since I couldn't walk to the bathroom). The doc saw me and said I likely had a herniated disk, but since I didn't have health insurance they couldn't do an MRI. The x-rays looked like I had a slipped disk. So the doc finished up telling me this and said, nonchalantly, "perhaps you should see your own doctor tomorrow?" and he started to leave, telling me that the nurse hovering in the background would see about releasing me from the hospital and er. Now, I like to be pleasant, but I lost it. I said "Wait! What do you mean you're sending me home? I can't WALK. I can't PEE. I KNOW something is wrong with my back. What am I supposed to DO?" Eventually I think I convinced him to admit me (regardless of not having insurance to cover it) and I spent a day in the hospital and spoke with some doctors who were very helpful. When they had to discharge me (more because I was poor, not because I should be discharged) the nurse told me I should get a walker to move around (I was in my 20s... a walker? really?). I told her I couldn't purchase one, so she "lent" me one from the hospital to return when I didn't need it.
Back at my apartment, there was a week before the end of teh term (I had to get incompletes in all my classes), and a week before my best friend/roomate was to get married. I remember the other two roommates pushing for me to go to the wedding, and not understanding why I couldn't just "push through the pain". You know how that is, when it's not about sheer guts or glory attitude or resistance to pain. It's about a physical impossibility. They guilted me over not being tough enough to push through the pain, and told me how much I wass letting my best friend down by not being there for her (Mormon weddings are a lot different from mainstream, so bridesmaid is sort of irrelevant). SHE understood. She got it that I was doing what I could. Even though she was getting ready for her wedding, she helped me to clear out her bedroom (as she was almost moved out already, it was easier to remove the last of her stuff and the bed) and she ordered up a rent-a-hospital bed for me, as I couldn't get up from bed without the help of a hospital bed. She did so much for me. Never said a word about my leting her down. She knew me well enough to know that it was simply beyond y abilities. Oh, and she "borrowed" my car for her honeymoon, and for the following six weeks -- my wedding gift to her.
I felt very alone in the world after her wedding. She was married, my other roommates moved out because it was end of term, and I was left in a vacant apartment with bright shiny brand new carpet. I had no local family, and the members of the church who were supposed to help me out kept conveniently "forgetting" that I needed help. I had to call the grocery store and tell them what I needed (they delivered, were very kind). If the church members who were supposed to pop by forgot, I went hungry. It was the most humiliating period of my life. My parents were unconcerned (I think they had plans to visit my sister and didn't want to break those up). I remember one day I was reaching for the phone and it fell out of my reach, and I lost my balance (while siting in the bed) and I ended up in a position from which it was IMPOSSIBLE to get out of it. AND the phone was out of reach. I lay there for 5 hours until a friend stopped by, and I asked him to come in and give me a hand. He did, and set me upright and got me back my phone.
I was humiliated by my helplessness, heartbroken over missing my friends wedding, upset at my parents lack of support, desperate because I had no money, and then I got an eviction notice. (I'd paid 8 months rent in advance). The people in the apartment complex wanted me to leave, NOW, and oh, yeah, since you paid the rent in advance, we keep it, toodles. Buh-bye. Their reason? My apartment was untidy, and I wasn't in my assigned bedroom. I'm not into litigation, I dislike the concept overall. But with them planning to STEAL my rent money, kicking me out because I was unable to do ANYTHING about cleaning in my apartment (and the promised help from church members never materialized), and because I injured my back BECAUSE I was moving furniture they demanded I move, even though that was not something they had the right to demand... I had to counter-sue them. It's the worst thing to barely be able to walk with a walker (I was making progress towards future maybe mobility). I didn't WANT to stay in that apartment, but I needed my rent money BACK, I needed them to NOT black-list me and make it severely difficult to find a new apartment to rent, and because of their sheer malicious actions I also demanded they pay my hospital costs, my hospital bed rental, my prescriptions, and my ambulance bills. We didn't go to court, we opted for mediation to hopefully keep the court costs out of the equation, and the mediator was good. I was rewarded back my rent money minus my deposit since I couldn't clean the place up in my debilitated condition, we both agreed to non-disclosure, and they had to pay my medical bills. (Since they were initially at fault for demanding I do something they had no right to demand... their argument that "you didn't have to do it" was weak since the letter they'd sent us was extremely clear: thou shalt move the furniture)... I also had help from the mediator (who was through the university) getting a new place to live, and the new church group for that location moved my stuff for me. The apartment complex (a mega complex with close to a thousand units) were between a rock and a hard place. With the facts available they were in the wrong. If they insisted on keeping to the "letter" of what I agreed to in my rental contract (it was written in that you don't get a refund if you pay ahead and then decide to move).... if they insisted they would have lost their contact with the university and been down hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It was truly one of teh worst times in my life. Having to ask for help, needing a home-visiting nurse to come and help me wipe my butt, isolated and without my best friend or anyone truly caring about me and how I was coping. It was pretty awesome the day I moved from a walker to a cane and returned my purloined walker to the hospital. My best friend returned from her honeymoon and I began to re-enter regular life. (I had to have the supermarket do my shopping for a full 18 months before I was well enough to do it).
SO... I know this is about YOU and not about me, but I wanted you to know how MUCH I get what you are going through, and how awful it can be. Irrelevant to your difficult situation (which I know is made worse by people just not understanding how demeaning it can be) I have to say that my experience did do one thing for me. As I was re-learning how to walk, goign through physical therapy, moving from walker to cane to walking without any aide to eventually throwing away my handicapped placard. The ability to walk sort of took my self-pity over being fat and ugly (my perception) and obliterated it. Fat? Ugly? Unloved? What did it matter. I could walk. My little mopeys about the woe-is-me nobody-loves-me just disintigrated. I realized that i was who I was, and I should just get on with life. I think it was really a most essential part of my growth as a human being. I began to accept myself for who I was and how I looked and with that acceptance came a great peace.
Good luck Kelly... sorry my story is so long, but I did want to share how much I could relate to your situation. To this day there are things I don't do because I know my back can't take it.
Let me share some of my back story that I don't think I've shared before with you or on here.
I mentioned that I herniated some disks in my back. This is when I was in college. I was living in a furnished college-approved apartment (they had very strict requirements to be approved, and you had to live in approved housing if you were single.... rigid requirements for BYU a religious institution)
My landlords decided to recarpt the apartments and even though it really wasn't cool to do it, they pretty much mandated that we, the tenants move the furniture out of the living room and into the tile-floor kitchen. My two less-favorite roomies didn't want to do it, so absented themselves for the day, my favorite roomate (later was matron of honor at my wedding) was preparing for her wedding so had to be out of town also. This left the job to me. I was also planning on being her maid of honor at her wedding.
So I moved the furniture. A living room full of furniture. I was immobile by the end of the day. I couldn't move at all. I couldn't get anything done. Couldn't attend my classes, could barely hobble to the bathroom. I had only the university health insurance which was good for flu or yeast infections or litle things like that, but no good for emergencies. On the day my favorite roommie returned from her bridal errands, I finally had to face it. I wasn't getting better, and I had gotten so incapable of movement, I knew I wouldn't mke it back to the restroom again. How in the world would I manage? I weighed about 300 at the time too. My roomie called 911. (I should mention that my roommie took my car for all the errands she did, we shared it). The ambulance men had difficulties getting me from my half-basement level apartment. In fact, just after they got me out of the stairwell, they dropped me about five feet. (yeah, dropped me).
I've always believed in being pleasant. I've always admired nurses for their most awful of jobs they do. I remember the ER at the hospital (The hospital was literally across the street from my apartment). The nurses wouldn't believe my pain was bad because I was trying to smile and put a good face on it (and was in SERIOUS bladder distress because I hadn't urinated in something like 18 hours since I couldn't walk to the bathroom). The doc saw me and said I likely had a herniated disk, but since I didn't have health insurance they couldn't do an MRI. The x-rays looked like I had a slipped disk. So the doc finished up telling me this and said, nonchalantly, "perhaps you should see your own doctor tomorrow?" and he started to leave, telling me that the nurse hovering in the background would see about releasing me from the hospital and er. Now, I like to be pleasant, but I lost it. I said "Wait! What do you mean you're sending me home? I can't WALK. I can't PEE. I KNOW something is wrong with my back. What am I supposed to DO?" Eventually I think I convinced him to admit me (regardless of not having insurance to cover it) and I spent a day in the hospital and spoke with some doctors who were very helpful. When they had to discharge me (more because I was poor, not because I should be discharged) the nurse told me I should get a walker to move around (I was in my 20s... a walker? really?). I told her I couldn't purchase one, so she "lent" me one from the hospital to return when I didn't need it.
Back at my apartment, there was a week before the end of teh term (I had to get incompletes in all my classes), and a week before my best friend/roomate was to get married. I remember the other two roommates pushing for me to go to the wedding, and not understanding why I couldn't just "push through the pain". You know how that is, when it's not about sheer guts or glory attitude or resistance to pain. It's about a physical impossibility. They guilted me over not being tough enough to push through the pain, and told me how much I wass letting my best friend down by not being there for her (Mormon weddings are a lot different from mainstream, so bridesmaid is sort of irrelevant). SHE understood. She got it that I was doing what I could. Even though she was getting ready for her wedding, she helped me to clear out her bedroom (as she was almost moved out already, it was easier to remove the last of her stuff and the bed) and she ordered up a rent-a-hospital bed for me, as I couldn't get up from bed without the help of a hospital bed. She did so much for me. Never said a word about my leting her down. She knew me well enough to know that it was simply beyond y abilities. Oh, and she "borrowed" my car for her honeymoon, and for the following six weeks -- my wedding gift to her.
I felt very alone in the world after her wedding. She was married, my other roommates moved out because it was end of term, and I was left in a vacant apartment with bright shiny brand new carpet. I had no local family, and the members of the church who were supposed to help me out kept conveniently "forgetting" that I needed help. I had to call the grocery store and tell them what I needed (they delivered, were very kind). If the church members who were supposed to pop by forgot, I went hungry. It was the most humiliating period of my life. My parents were unconcerned (I think they had plans to visit my sister and didn't want to break those up). I remember one day I was reaching for the phone and it fell out of my reach, and I lost my balance (while siting in the bed) and I ended up in a position from which it was IMPOSSIBLE to get out of it. AND the phone was out of reach. I lay there for 5 hours until a friend stopped by, and I asked him to come in and give me a hand. He did, and set me upright and got me back my phone.
I was humiliated by my helplessness, heartbroken over missing my friends wedding, upset at my parents lack of support, desperate because I had no money, and then I got an eviction notice. (I'd paid 8 months rent in advance). The people in the apartment complex wanted me to leave, NOW, and oh, yeah, since you paid the rent in advance, we keep it, toodles. Buh-bye. Their reason? My apartment was untidy, and I wasn't in my assigned bedroom. I'm not into litigation, I dislike the concept overall. But with them planning to STEAL my rent money, kicking me out because I was unable to do ANYTHING about cleaning in my apartment (and the promised help from church members never materialized), and because I injured my back BECAUSE I was moving furniture they demanded I move, even though that was not something they had the right to demand... I had to counter-sue them. It's the worst thing to barely be able to walk with a walker (I was making progress towards future maybe mobility). I didn't WANT to stay in that apartment, but I needed my rent money BACK, I needed them to NOT black-list me and make it severely difficult to find a new apartment to rent, and because of their sheer malicious actions I also demanded they pay my hospital costs, my hospital bed rental, my prescriptions, and my ambulance bills. We didn't go to court, we opted for mediation to hopefully keep the court costs out of the equation, and the mediator was good. I was rewarded back my rent money minus my deposit since I couldn't clean the place up in my debilitated condition, we both agreed to non-disclosure, and they had to pay my medical bills. (Since they were initially at fault for demanding I do something they had no right to demand... their argument that "you didn't have to do it" was weak since the letter they'd sent us was extremely clear: thou shalt move the furniture)... I also had help from the mediator (who was through the university) getting a new place to live, and the new church group for that location moved my stuff for me. The apartment complex (a mega complex with close to a thousand units) were between a rock and a hard place. With the facts available they were in the wrong. If they insisted on keeping to the "letter" of what I agreed to in my rental contract (it was written in that you don't get a refund if you pay ahead and then decide to move).... if they insisted they would have lost their contact with the university and been down hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It was truly one of teh worst times in my life. Having to ask for help, needing a home-visiting nurse to come and help me wipe my butt, isolated and without my best friend or anyone truly caring about me and how I was coping. It was pretty awesome the day I moved from a walker to a cane and returned my purloined walker to the hospital. My best friend returned from her honeymoon and I began to re-enter regular life. (I had to have the supermarket do my shopping for a full 18 months before I was well enough to do it).
SO... I know this is about YOU and not about me, but I wanted you to know how MUCH I get what you are going through, and how awful it can be. Irrelevant to your difficult situation (which I know is made worse by people just not understanding how demeaning it can be) I have to say that my experience did do one thing for me. As I was re-learning how to walk, goign through physical therapy, moving from walker to cane to walking without any aide to eventually throwing away my handicapped placard. The ability to walk sort of took my self-pity over being fat and ugly (my perception) and obliterated it. Fat? Ugly? Unloved? What did it matter. I could walk. My little mopeys about the woe-is-me nobody-loves-me just disintigrated. I realized that i was who I was, and I should just get on with life. I think it was really a most essential part of my growth as a human being. I began to accept myself for who I was and how I looked and with that acceptance came a great peace.
Good luck Kelly... sorry my story is so long, but I did want to share how much I could relate to your situation. To this day there are things I don't do because I know my back can't take it.
~Lady Lithia~ 200 lbs lost!
March 9, 2011 - Coccygectomy!
I chased my dreams, and my dreams, they caught me!
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