“… it touched the nerves!” Now that is a different ball game altogether, everything else is child’s play, this is the real deal. This is not the first time I have had back pain, but herinated disc took it to another level.
So as I bent to stretch my hamstrings post my run, my back gave, I thought I could just sit down and shake it off, little did I realise that I was about to commence the journey into the worse pain I have ever experienced. L5/S1 disc had slipped on my lower back! There is pain and there is pain, this was excruciating, I did not get it! it went down my left leg all the way to my toes. The pain was too intense to scream. I had always thought that there was no pain that Ibuprofen could not handle. I was to learn very quickly, I was rolling and groaning in pain for weeks, unable to sleep. The GP had to bring out the big gun of pain killers, I was given Tramadol – now that is a drug that requires it’s own write up, but I must leave that for another day. Getting off Tramadal was another struggle in itself but I must admit, it took the edge off the pain. Slowly but surely my pain started to subside and in about 6 to 8 weeks I was virtually pain free. I was so relieved, not fully understanding what caused the pain, I swore to stay away from any likely culprit and erroneously ruled out running and just took life easy.
I was so happy to be pain free but noticed that I was left with a rather irritating numbness at back of my left calf all the way to the two little toes on that same foot. I went to physio and they explained that I must just learn to live with the numbness as when the sciatic nerves have been touched or damaged it could be permanent. Operation to trim the disc away from the nerve is possible, however they advised that the ensuing risk outweighs the benefits. So I have been forced to live with this numbness.
How numb have we become to hurts and pains in our lives? We’ve just learnt to live with it.
Beautiful Ivory 