I went thru so many years of episodic low back pain attacks which I would call "my back going out" as I could be doing anything like bending over to pull my underwear up and boom~ that slicing pain would hit and then I'd spasm badly and feel like cold something was running down my legs. Would need to lie down for an underdetermined amount of time ~ days, weeks... usually 2 to 4 weeks at a time.
The episodic pain that disabled me led to catastrophic thinking and I made some very deep decisions based on my life with disabling pain.
After my 2nd spine surgery the pain was chronic and worse than any episode I had ever experienced as the pain was deep and burning and altho I'd had that somewhat before it would go away in a few days. After that surgery it took 5 years to mostly go away and still left me with residual neuropathies.
Now I've had really good PM since 2001 and since 2004/5 I have felt much better. So much so I had decided to not take the chance with more surgery such as multi level ADR and/or hybrid surgery.
While pain no longer rules my life in the way that it did one day while planning a trip with "normies" (friends) all of a sudden I realized that I do have issues that might prevent me from doing all the things that my friends do on a trip but I had spent so much time around them feeling well that I had completely forgotten this!
Usually that is not the case~ the difference in my life now is that when an episode hits and usually I think it is muscle spasms now I can pretty much tell myself to just relax and wait it out. I'm much calmer now than I was many years past with regard to my pain and the toll it takes on me.
I have had nearly as many years seeing myself as a "spiney" as I was a "normie".
Now that's gotta have some mental hangover
