{"id":3329,"date":"2009-02-04T22:38:10","date_gmt":"2009-02-05T03:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3329"},"modified":"2009-02-04T22:38:10","modified_gmt":"2009-02-05T03:38:10","slug":"whats-up-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3329","title":{"rendered":"What’s up, doc?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I went to my orthopedist this afternoon. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I have a herniated lumbar disc, which has been causing me discomfort and pain, mostly in my left leg, since this past spring. Lately, I’ve been noticing more a pins-and-needles sensation, mostly in the left foot, and mostly when I stand after having been seated for any length of time. It’s like the sensation you get when your foot’s just<\/i> falling asleep or just about to wake back up. <\/p>\n

I’ve also been noticing more occasional twinges in my lower back, which has been relatively pain-free until very recently — to the extent that I first mistook my original symptoms for a pulled hamstring or something less serious like that. There’s still enough pain to go around, and plenty of it still in the leg, but overall the sciatica has definitely improved, I think. <\/p>\n

This new sensation isn’t painful — and it’s usually, if not always, fleeting — but it is a little disconcerting, and I am worried about it getting worse. (Ever tried walking on a fully<\/i> asleep leg?) I’m worried also about possible nerve damage that the still-herniated disc might be causing.<\/p>\n

So I had a chat with my orthopedist, along with a quick test of my reflexes, and then he wrote me a scrip for a new MRI. I’m not exactly looking forward<\/i> to that — I’m not claustrophobic by nature, but a closed MRI seems designed for the sole purpose of making<\/i> people claustrophobic — but it will give us a sense of how I’m healing (or not) and what to do next. I was reassured that this might very well be the condition getting better<\/i> — a centralization of the pain and the nerve itself waking back up. We’ll take a look at the new MRI and try to figure out if that’s the case — or, I guess, what to do if it’s not.<\/p>\n

I try not to complain too much about all of this. I have at least a couple of friends with similar back problems, but whose symptoms and pain have been much more severe than my own. Even in New Orleans last March, which is presumably where I first truly injured my back, and where I could barely get in and out of bed, the fact remains that I could<\/i> get in and out of bed. This has inconvenienced me and made many simple things difficult, but I haven’t been confined to my bed or incapacitated. by the pain. I’ve been relatively lucky.<\/p>\n

I’m just hoping my luck continues to hold. In the meantime, I’ll keep doing my stretches and icing my back as needed.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I went to my orthopedist this afternoon. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I have a herniated lumbar disc, which has been causing me discomfort and pain, mostly in my left leg, since this past spring. Lately, I’ve been noticing more a pins-and-needles sensation, mostly in the left foot, and mostly when I … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-3329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}