WHY DOSEN'T ANYONE , EVEN MY WIFE GET IT?

[Hollywood]

I'm having alot of problems with standing and walking because i've had this bad back for 30 years.

I've done everything I can, the surgeon says he would do surgery but it might work but there is just to much damage over the years and recovery from surgery would be bad with my illness.

So everyone even MY WIFE WHO KNOWS ME says I should go to inpatient physical therapy.

I worked construction, I was a personal trainer, I KNOW MY BODY!! I have tried the gym and exercise over the whole 30 years i've had this illness.

Right now all that happens when I exercise is that I end up in so much pain it's ridiculous.

Everyone is different, I know what I can do and can't do. physical therapy might work for some people. But not me.

Especially burns me up when my wife tells me to do it. She just does it to make me upset. She's seen me workout for weeks and get no where except in bed.

People are so screwed up. But I'm Christian so I just have to pray ALOT.    

[ronr]

You should maybe try some water exercise.  Definitely NOT aerobic or core building, just slow and easy.  It's more like stretching and walking than actual exercise, imagine a ninety year old like our body feels. 

The water gives some buoyancy so there is not as much weight of gravity pulling constantly and provides a different kind of resistance.

Improvement is slow but if you can stretch easier after a month or two it counts as improvement and it's all outpatient.

Just an idea.

[Robby]

The last 5 times I've tried therapy, well take the last time, I only managed to get there for the first 4 weeks. The last time I went, I managed to drive myself home. Then I had to sit in my car for over an hour waiting for someone to get home to help me inside. I was then in bed for the next two and a half weeks, then another 4 weeks I was able to get to the couch, with help, but had to have help to the bathroom. Dawn finally talked me into getting in a hot tub of water, to see if it would make me feel better, because I could not stand up long enough for a shower. Had to call my middle son, to come help my oldest son, get me out of the tub. Embarrassed them very badly. I have never cared about that, I was almost considered a exobitionsit. I never just went around showing everything to everybody, but if someone came in the bathroom while I was in th eshower, or drying off afterwards, I did not care. I slept commando, so if I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and there was people at the house, they just had to deal with it. Most of my frineds, got used to it, and didn't even notice. There was usually people at my house all hours of the day and night.

I got the letter from Social Security this week about it's time to do another update of my medical condition. It's done about every 10  years, and you just have to show that your condition is the same or worse than when you were approved. So I pulled up the patient webpage from my Dr. and we started writing my DX's, and she said "how many of these are real and how many are fake just so you can keep your disability." I told her they were all real, and I had been trying to tell her that, but she woldn't listen. She's seen me at my worst, and when it get above an 8.5, she can see it on my  face, she knows how bad it gets. But she still doesn't understand that there are some things I just can't do. She does not understand that there is a limit to what I can do in one day. She does ont undestand when I get depressed over things. I mean anybody in this condition would get depressedf rrom time to time, but I have clinical depression on top of bipolar, I'm going to get depressed, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and how long.

I compltetly understand how  you feel. Unfortunately, I don't have any advice that will help  you. But I guess, we could always just take turns complaining to each other about things, and how frustrating it is, when they ask or say some of the crap they say, and ask. "You need to get off the computer, and go mow the yard". I'm sitting here at a 9.3, I have tears running down my face, I'm about one deep breath away from throwing up from the pain, and she says "When you get done crying about how your hurting, you need to get the dishes done, I don't want any excuses. I hurt to, the arthritis in my knees makes it hard to move them". I tell her, take your knee pain, spread it over your entire body, and then mutiply it times 10, and then you will just begain to understand how bad I'm hurting. When you throw up  from the pain, let me know and I'll talk to you about being in pain. Until it gets that bad for you, sit down and be quite".

[Hollywood]

"When you get done crying about how your hurting, you need to get the dishes done, I don't want any excuses. I hurt to, the arthritis in my knees makes it hard to move them".

Dam Robby that is horrible, but again I understand. I was having a PANIC attack one night. And I told my wife, but she just kept going with pushing my panic buttons. Maybe she wants to see me in pain? and freaking out. I ask, lets talk about this later. But NO  SHE HAS TO TALK NOW. While I'm feeling 

I also like when you said we can just complain to each other. It's nice to know someone gets it.    

ronr thanks for the water suggestion. I know it would be good for me. I just have to find a pool. The one in our complex has been closed for over 2 years
It's perfectly clear blue, so I ask the office manager is the pool open. Her answer is "NO" I ask do you have an idea when it will open? "NO" then I ask a month? 2 months and so on. Her answer is "NO idea" I really wish we had enough money to move. But were stuck.
They also have some public pools around, but I have no transportation.   

[foxgrove]

I understand where you're coming from with the exercise thing. Even the most gentle of what I would traditionally call exercise can throw me for a loop. For that reason, I started to redefine exercise for myself as anything other than simply lying on my back, as long as it wasn't sitting... I hate sitting. Bad design!! Sitting hates me so it's mutual.

In any case, (can you tell I'm foggy today yet??) if you need any reading material on massage, water therapy movements, trigger point shtuff... you know, SLTT... stuff like that there... What were we talking about. jeez this cold sucks I can't remember how to shut off the autotype so this might get a little messy before I can send it sorry bro save save file shut well that's not what I said but thank you for saving my modesty post computer post mouse dan mitt

[ronr]

WARM water.

[foxgrove]

Yes!!! WARM water!!! Not cold, certainly not hot. 95°F seems to be a really nice sweetspot where your muscles can relax but your body doesn't tend to overheat as much. Your cherry temperature might be slightly different.

[Hollywood]

Peeing in the pool and staying in that spot helps warm it up..  

[Robby]

"When you get done crying about how your hurting, you need to get the dishes done, I don't want any excuses. I hurt to, the arthritis in my knees makes it hard to move them".

Dam Robby that is horrible, but again I understand. I was having a PANIC attack one night. And I told my wife, but she just kept going with pushing my panic buttons. Maybe she wants to see me in pain? and freaking out. I ask, lets talk about this later. But NO  SHE HAS TO TALK NOW. While I'm feeling 

I also like when you said we can just complain to each other. It's nice to know someone gets it.  

ronr thanks for the water suggestion. I know it would be good for me. I just have to find a pool. The one in our complex has been closed for over 2 years
It's perfectly clear blue, so I ask the office manager is the pool open. Her answer is "NO" I ask do you have an idea when it will open? "NO" then I ask a month? 2 months and so on. Her answer is "NO idea" I really wish we had enough money to move. But were stuck.
They also have some public pools around, but I have no transportation.   

"When you get done crying about how your hurting, you need to get the dishes done, I don't want any excuses. I hurt to, the arthritis in my knees makes it hard to move them".

Dam Robby that is horrible,   

OK, let me back up a minute and clarify myself. Yes she said that, just like I  posted, the problem is I failed to tell the whole story It was something I just failed to put in, it wasn't on purpose, I wasn't trying to make it sound worse than it is or anything like that,

 Just understand,, when she said this about a month ago, she had been working 65 to 75 hours a week for a couple of months. She was exhausted, the pain in her knees was really acting up, plus she just didn't feel good. So she was in one of those mental states where you say stuff you really don't mean. But she has said very similar things, just not as bad, several times before.

Yes, I could probably do more around the house, but I sit here and I go to get up and do stuff, and then I think about how much I"m going to hurt if I do that, and then I just sit here dreading do those things, until I wasted so much time that I don't have time to do it. So I mean, I really can't blame her for being upset over how much I don't get done, especially when I have one of those really bad flares, that last a month or more. So yes she said it, but that's not exactly what she meant. She doesn't understand the pain level, or how it works, she doesn't have a clue about how exhausting it is to only sleep an hour or two a night because of the pain.

She'll wake up the night, and come in the living room and gripe about me being on the computer instead of in bad, she tells me playing on the computer is why I don't sleep so I just need to shut it off so I can go to bed and go to sleep. It does me to good to tell her (again), first I have insomnia, that keeps me awake, and on top of that I can only lay down for a short period of time before my back, and hips start screaming in pain and I have to get up, and let the pain rest and relax. She just can't understand how my back and hips hurt so bad I can't lay down, especially when I get to hurting really bad, I have to go lay down. That is opposites, which is it, can't lay down because of the pain, or or have to lay down because of the pain. She, like most other people see the the  how everything affects me, but just can't understand how bad it is. Unless you have experienced this yourself, you can not understand how bad it is. They can't understand how bad the smallest things can affect you. I'm talking about a level3 or4 pain, one of those nagging, pains that don't really hurt, it's just uncomfortable, but it last for 2 months. By the time it's over you are so defeated, and that small nagging type pain has you in a place, you would rather wet yourself than get up to go the bathroom.                                         

[foxgrove]

Yeah... we all say things that we don't mean from time to time and pain tends to get the best of us at the most inopportune times. That plus, we generally tend to let out our worst side with those we know won't condemn us for it. No worries... good to know there isn't a row brewing between you and Dawn.

I will saw that I can relate to this in a weird way. We've all been going through really serious colds... this darned adeno virus has been bopping back and forth between us and the kids so much, we're starting to wonder what it's like not to be sick. I'm now trying not to dislocate or break anything while I regularly hack up a lung or two. It's done wonders to my sleep... like a dump truck sitting on your chest kinda wonders... but I'd better get back on the main track before I get too run down...

um... something about... oh yeah, Jo and Jessica were talking about the guys catching the colds but having the "man flu"... now I get it. Generally our ability to do stuff during a cold does tend to be less than the ladies for whatever strange reason but I just happened to have pulled a rib that morning from coughing and took it kinda personally and asked them not to use that term anymore as it was really hurtful. Yeah, I know... I'm such a baby when I get a cold. My schtick on it is that I'm already seriously f'd up with pain and adding a cold on top of it with the extra inflammation in my muscles and sinuses means that it's really darned painful.

Of course, I'm not going toe to toe on pain with someone who voluntarily pushed four watermelons through her garden hose, so to speak.