His powers of time manipulation and psychic control are indeed legend. With seeming little effort (probably napping), he reached through the void of time and space to appear on my little screen and save me from feeling crappy tonight.
Thank you Ganon!
Anyone loved by Levar Burton and Mark Hamill...
The man was irreplaceable.
... Stupid brother keeps picking up the phone.
If the gabapentin helps, have you looked at pregabalin? My doc suggested it and it's like a super gabapentin. Much more effective, less side effects.
It's been a huge help for me... Made the difference between active and not active most days.
Steroid epidurals also helped me a lot, but your needs might vary.
Too bad they can't do it by mental age... There's some middle and late age toddlers that need removed from socials.
My doctor and I suspect a childhood injury initially, but absolutely degenerative over time after the fact. My symptoms had largely been just pain for most of my life, but 2014-2016 saw them start to affect walking and hand use.
The thought was that youth masked things, but middle age caught me 😄
Woah... I've caught myself sitting like that unconsciously for years and kept thinking it was bad lol... That position is my go to on bad days. Never thought about it actually putting things into a good state.
Excellent.
The years of misdiagnosis and useless treatments are the worst. I now have a set of docs that I am literally afraid of losing as these actual listen and dig into the why.... The listening! So damned important.
My primary guy is amazing and kept going until we found. I went from age 14 until 35 before finding this guy, and he's the first to actually believe me.
I almost accidentally killed myself on ibuprofen... Pain so bad I lost track of how much I was taking since I couldn't sleep and almost killed my liver. Blood pressure spike well into the stroke ranges....
Glad you found a good one who got you fixed up.
I went through a severe disc intrusion, 68‰ central spinal compression.
Full treatment was anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, followed by a few years of on/off physical therapies and some follow-up steroidal spinal nerve epidural shots for pain treatments.
I note this is likely a more extreme case than you describe, but it might give insight into potential risks or perhaps unexpected things to look forward to.
My issues went untreated for close to about 20 years after onset of first neuropathic symptoms.
Initial symptoms:
Arms burning/pain from any position angled over shoulder height.
Headaches and neck pain, frequent.
Weakness in left arm and hand.
Later these turned to outright muscle spasm in shoulders and neck. Everything became more painful.
Started losing reliable use of left hand and would lose balance and use of left foot. Lots of aching pain in left thigh.
This was around time of diagnosis, consider baseline for me.
I attempted many months of various physical therapy and drug treatments. Some stalled things getting worse, none resolved things. Important to note, I had nerve damage by this time to the central canal.
A neurosurgeon performed a Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion, removing the bad disc layer and using a structure to bond the associated spinal bones C5 and C6 together, including a titanium plate and 2 screws.
I woke up in the recovery feeling better than I had in literal years.
That said, this surgery took place in 2016. I'm still recovering from the nerve damage and muscle death caused my the initial injury.
From the immediate pressure release, I was back to my baseline function within just a few weeks. Surgery related stuff resolved quickly for me.
I slept better than the previous 20 years. Absolutely worth it for me.
I mainly needed physical therapy exercises to keep the neck and shoulder areas stretching out since the muscle trauma can cause tightening.
Since that time, I'm still recovering from the associated nerve damage from the initial compression, but it's still an amazing night and day improvement.
Aside from the main surgery itself, the things that made the biggest differences for me:
Steroid epidurals: neuro anaesthesiologists can isolate areas inflamed in the region and can target painkillers and steroids to hugely improve many symptoms, often permanently. Not simplest, but easier than surgery and has also helped me with some associated shoulder stenosis greatly. Takes pressure off nerve damage to allow healing and pain relief.
Tizanidine: prescription muscle relaxer. This one functions a bit different than Robaxin / Soma / Valium, and was a life saver for years before they identified the stenosis itself. It was the only relief for the tightness or cramping I'd experience in neck, shoulders, left thigh and calves.
Swimming and cycling: done in low intensity, these have been the most successful exercises at rebuilding the muscle deterioration in my central and lower back. I use a pedal-assist style ebike that let's me focus the work based on pace and heart rate, with it taking the brunt of harder hills.
Stretches!!! While the strength stuff from PT matters, the stretching stuff matters 10000x more! Needed to work with the therapist to figure stuff that wasn't in the books etc... Strange angles to isolate the areas specific to my injury. Once we dialed in what I should try to feel from a good stretch, I've been able to catch the bad stuff as it starts early pretty often.
Good luck on your treatment, whatever you choose. I hope you find real relief.
Feel free to DM me if you have specific questions or if I can help. This is a lot to digest, and I'm happy to offer clarity.
To be fair, all these great women are now grabbing their pussies to show that amateur how it's supposed to be done!