I continue to get better, but I have to keep testing to see how much.
In back off July 6th I described how I damaged my back the end of May pulling up 200′ of fence posts and 20′ of young willow trees with my bare hands GRRRRRR! No, I wasn’t in a macho mood or anything, just… uh … Well, not acting my age, for sure.
I updated the saga with Rx – phase III August 21st, starting to add massage therapy to my prescription of just not abusing it for six months according to a surgeon friend of mine. This IS working. I am definitely improving … rapidly, assuming a six-month schedule, but not nearly fast enough for me.
So a little test today seemed okay. Just gently, mind you. I started doing a few half-situps to begin regaining a little muscle tone. Not much, mind you as they clearly involve compressing those delicate lower discs. Hey, ten are good. Twenty are fine. Thirty. Fourty. They are, after all, not real situps,
Gee. My back sure seems to be more sore lately. DUH!
Cancel the situps for a while. Bad motion.
I quit that a week ago. Feeling pretty good…
The pine needles are smothering our lawn with their allelopathic ways. They have been bugging me for quite some time now. Today I was feeling restless and pretty sturdy.
Raking is a dangerous motion. It involves the same kind of pulling that got me in trouble to begin with. Do nothing that compresses the discs. Put precious little extra pressure on those guys.
So I raked slowly, using great care and some special non-standard raking moves… a lot of just dragging the rake as it filled up with needles.
It looks good. The grasses thanked me profusely.
My back, however, didn’t.
I laid down on it for a couple of hours before the pain was gone again.
Okay. Not ready for raking yet.
But recovery was quick. A couple hours and the pain is pretty much gone.
As long as I do nothing.
Six months! That’s the end of November! Not okay.
The popular alternative of prescription pain meds, back abuse until corrective surgery is required to fuse the spine and burn off the nerves. I’ve talked with people who went this route.
I’ll be patient… or try.
Sigh.
