New here, looking for help with back...
 

Hi, My name is Jason. I am 26 yrs old. I suffer from two herniated discs in my back. L5-S1 and T5-T6.

Hello and Welcome!
 

I see you have found your way to our Spinal Disorders and Back Pain forum. :)

Please feel free to roam around and join in anywhere! You have found a wonderful community full of very kind, caring, compassionate people who share a wealth of knowledge and understanding.

Pull up a chair and stay a while!
I look forward to seeing you around the board!
:)
Abbie

Welcome aboard!
 

Hello and welcome to NeuroTalk. Happy to see you have come to be with us. Just let us know if we can be of any help.

As you can tell there are great number and caring fellow members here to assist you. Our shoulders are here for support in many ways.

Again welcome, looking forward to seeing you around. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Darlene :hug:

http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/r...ugsTags-vi.gif

Hi, and welcome to NT! This is such a great place with many friendly, helpful, and caring people.

We're so glad you found us!

l5 therapy?
 

Welcome Jason. I too am a newbie so don't know how to do the bells and whistles but my welcome :grouphug: is no less sincere.

You did not say what kind of pain you are in but suspect it "grabs" you sometimes. Here is my experience;

15 years has passed since being dx with spondylolisthesis, and I did back care yoga to no avail. Then discovered a small herniated L5 disk (pain down the sciatic nerve) so they operated to repair it. No problems :) since then but do gentle "back care" yoga most every day. Don't try it without consultation, but am suggesting you might discuss this with your doctor.

Keep in touch 'cause I'd like to know what they suggest for new therapies. Don

Hi Jason ~ Jeez, you're pretty young to be having this kind of trouble. I'm sorry you're in such a fix.

What has your doctor recommended?? Has he referred you to physical therapy? I hope so. You CERTAINLY do NOT want surgery!!! You'll be in worse shape than you are now. Besides, most doctors to NOT want to operate on the T-spine. that's too close to major organs, like the heart & lungs.

If your doc hasn't referred you to therapy, ask him to do so. That will help you alot. Best of luck and God bless. Hugs, Lee

yeah, well the back problems are from work injury as roofer/mason. Tryd the PT with no helpful results. T-spine is 100% out of the question for operation. L-spine is on the table tho for operation. This is just a really hard time for my family and myself. Been outta work since 2008 with back injurys.

it is awfully hard to get a T spine injury, was this a direct blow? Are they confident that it is an injury and not some sort of birth anomaly?

Hi

Yeah the Ts are hard to break and herniate. They're big and tough.

Back pain is miserable pain...

Here is a quick list of some things that helped my back pain. Neck epidurals X3... I know, but it did help. Yoga and stretching, home exercises, aqua therapy, Back Magic alignemnt board, oversized tennis balls (pet store), Kinesio Tape, LED/infrared light therapy pads, TheraCane, inversion table-but caused bilateral knee and hip pain-I don't have complaints there, normally. ??? Vit D, Folic Acid, water, water, water, quit smoking. Need to quit Pepsi and coffee. Physical therapy, e-stim, hot/cold packs/ ThermaCare http://www.google.com/search?source=...aq=9&oq=Therma . No bending. Gopher/grabbers for reaching and picking stuff up off the floor. so many things I've tried at different times, over 10 years now. Pillows. Didn't like braces too much. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things.

Ask if you want to know about anything in detail. I will be more than happy to share anything I can to try to help. :hug:

Now I get by with LED/infrared light therapy pads, Bayer AM, Advil Liquigels, Tylenol PM. Occasionally I do have some old--getting very old muscle relaxers and Celebrex I take. Oh, yeah. and Lidoderm 5% patches. now they have Flector, with anti-inflammatory in it. May work better than the Lidoderm. I don't know. The Lidoderm got me through a lot. You numb me and I'll move. :wink:

I pray you get some relief in some way today.

Well, just an update on whats been going down. I lost both my work comp and SSI cases. I am now seeking a 2nd opinion from a spc. on the east side of the state. My family doctor refuses to increase my pain medication. He referred me to a pain clinic but my ins. what authorize the visit until the 1st of the year. (4 injections this year). I suffer the most from the T5 disc area (not that the lower dont bother me) I still have the pain that comes thru my chest. The spc. I was seeing was addiment (spl) that the pain in the front was NOT related to the disc problem. Thing is, my pain will go from say a 4-6 in the back, then at around the 6 mark, it starts in the front. It gets so bad that I have to lay down, sitting or standing does not help.

I honestly feel I am being stereotyped or discriminated against for a few reasons. 1) my age, now 27. 2) I have a high threshold for pain and I dont walk around complaining and boo-hooing about the pain. So to the average person, it "looks" as if I am fine. I have appealed the SSI's ALJ decision and lost that. So I guess its on to the civil appeal or whatever.

FML!

I was 27 when I had a pretty minor cumulative trauma work injury. After being being butchered in surgery and receiving corrective surgery, I ended up developing RSD/CRPS. I received a Fully Favorable SSDI, but it took years to get. If you'd like to visit the SSD forum, the sticky's hold quite a bit of info.

You might want to consider starting a new SSI application. SS has changed the law that allowed you to appeal your first application and start a second application simultanoeously. You would first need to research why your first application wasn't approved. Age does play a role, but if the severity of your disability truly will not allow you to perform any work, you can still prevail with a successful SSI claim.

WC is a little trickier since every state's system and laws are different.

Do you have an attorney representing you in either legal matter? If so, what is their advice?

If you're not being offered Voc Rehab from WC, you might want to explore your state Vocational Rehabilitation Agency. They might be able to determine if you capable of training for more sedentary work with accommodations for your disability, but if they're not (they'll provide testing and very likely new docs opinions as well) able to, you'll have unbiased documentation.

Having the support of all of your treating docs in your SSI application is vital as well. It is highly unlikely you'll receive SSI approval without it. Keep in mind SS doesn't care if your disability is a WC injury...

Having a WC injury CAN make SSD approval more difficult. Reports from hired gun WC docs that have never even met you, can be incredibly frustrating to disprove. They can be used as a convenient excuse to deny approval. But--as in my case, I was able to prove the severity of my disability to SS.

1/3 of all new applications are approved in the first step of the process. Some of those approvals include those who have been previously denied. Things can go much quicker if you learn about the complicated SS system upfront--not an easy or fun thing--but sometimes necessary.