Cheryl
Thank you for your reply as well. I'm sorry to hear you have that much to deal with re family as that can be quite stressful (as I well know). My Mom passed away in '03 w/massive stroke and she was 83 and still active although at a slower pace. It was kind of a shock but I was glad she didn't suffer. Last year I had to got my father into an Assisted Living Facility here in Fla that was still fairly close to his condo as he wanted to keep it. He was well taken care of there and even though he had just turned 89 he was doing well when he caught pneumonia and had Congestive Heart Failure and was hospitalized and died 6 days later.
I was left with the job of clearing out the condo and taking care of everything essentially and it's been tough but mostly it seems on my neck and probably my emotions hence the headaches/neck pain.
I do take a daily pain medication. Low dose and same that I started on 10 years ago however it keeps me quite functional. Works well for my low back but does squat for my neck. Migraines and neck pain seem to have mulit causation as far as I can tell. Some things are definate predictable triggers for both. I just despise the near complete halt my life comes to with pain from this though! Am used to it tho don't have to like it!
I was told about 12 years ago that I had inherited a "crappy spine" meaning I have DDD thru- out my spine and a bunch of "stuff" going on. In the cervical area I have DDD at about 3 levels and osteophytes and one disc bulge that I was told about several years back. It seems to get aggravated easily enough just like my low back used to. Of course I've been doing plenty here to aggravate it! If I were a candidate for ADR in my cervical spine I think I'd opt to do that. Fusion if that were necessary.. though I'm a fusion phobe pretty much.
An occasional bit of red wine seems to be nice though I find that I get h/a's from drinking if more than one drink or perhaps crappy quality alchohol. My stomach doesn't tolerate much anyway and I have intersticial cystitis so not even supposed to drink at all (but then again nor am I supposed to eat or drink a good many foods). Sometimes tho ya gotta do what ya gotta do and just enjoy, relax (and maybe pay for it later)!
Anyway that's sort of my story for now or part of it as it's way too long and boring. I'm almost done here and ready to return back to CA and take a break when I get back. Can't wait to sleep in my own bed again as it's a really good one for my spine! A good shot of Toradol 60 mg IM really helps my neck and low back out with an acute bout of muscle spasms altho I try to reserve that for when I absolutely feel I have to go there. Which might happen before or after I travel shortly!
|