I went to the doctor yesterday – finally – for my lower back pain. They took several x-rays and concluded that I have a degenerated disc – the lowest disc in my back. My tailbone, basically. Standing up, I’m fine. Sitting down, I’m in agony. The pain should have been gradual – so apparently there was some incident that brought on the sudden pain I’ve been having. I think it was probably lifting 50-lb chicken feed bags – but it could have easily been something else, too.

So I got some meds, and I started physical therapy today. Physical therapy for lower back pain is quite different than the therapy I had after knee surgery a couple years ago. It was much more passive. Part of the time I was on the table, and the therapist manipulated my leg and/or arm to stretch the muscle that was hurting. Other times I stood up and had to stretch one way or the other.

With the meds the doctor gave me along with the physical therapy, I’m feeling much better. I felt good enough that when I got home this afternoon, I went outside and walked and got “all green” on my Fitbit – something I hadn’t done since May 5th. So I am encouraged physically.

Now that I’m getting the back pain under control, I need to get back to my clean eating and start losing weight again. I’d love to lose about 10 more pounds before we go on vacation the end of June. That’s do-able – especially if I can continue exercising and walking more.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2015 at 9:33 pm and is filed under This 'n That. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.