Third time's a charm?

After having a couple rounds of transforaminal nerve blocks in August/September, I've still been having lots of trouble with my back -- which has not been great for my 3-Day training.

I had an MRI a couple weeks ago, and saw my pain management doc's nurse practitioner on Thursday, to get the results and hopefully a magical cure for the ridiculous back pain that's getting in the way of my life.

What she told me was that in fact I have a third herniated disc -- just above the other two that we've been treating for the past couple years.

Good news, I guess -- at least we know that it's not the first two discs that are causing all the trouble and not responding to treatment, but ugh: another disc? We're going to try another nerve block for the newly herniated disc (L3-L4) on Wednesday, and hopefully that will get me through the 3-Day, without too much trouble.

I do love the nurse practitioner -- she was super-helpful, and also told me that I was the only patient she had that was doing something as active as the 3-Day, and that my condition has the potential to produce much more serious pain than most of her patients who aren't getting out there and moving around. Good news there: I knew I was doing something great, but I didn't really know how much of an obstacle I was overcoming to do it. Cool.

After the 3-Day, I'm going to try another round of physical therapy -- in the water, this time. Hopefully, that'll help too.

But for now -- the 3-Day is in SIX DAYS!!! Please click on the widget at right to give if you haven't yet; this is a big thing I'm doing, and I definitely need all of your support.