[Maria]

Went differently yesterday due to what the OSS said is "Obama Care."
I've never been there with so few people and had to wait so long or had to do such a dog and pony show before getting seen.. anyway finally 2 hours after I arrived I was seen and my appt. took all of 5 minutes with the OSS which remained the same as most years past.

Yes I had an xray which I expected and my L4 is very flat but not fusing and L5S1 appears to have auto fused. OSS suspects all probs coming from L4 though I still have good tone, strength, etc so no MRI ordered (didn't think there would be) although I was taken by surprise by his recommendation for an ESI (epidural steroid injection) as it's been about 3-4 years since my last one and each time I asked in the past about getting one he said that WC would not authorize it. He now thinks they will. We shall see. I'm not expecting that to happen.

Anyway I was so rather bothered by what seemed like the new process to be seen (wait half hour in what looked like not full waiting room, get called in to cubicle to have my updated info typed into chart, go back to waiting room, wait another half hour to be called into xray, made to put on super oversized paper shorts and wait in waiting area for xray, made to keep those super oversized shorts on and wait in xray waiting room another half hour to get called into to see Dr.... here's where it gets back to normal seeing OSS for very short appt. which is OK with me since I didn't think anything was out of the ordinary). I was also preoccupied with having a note given re not being able to perform Jury Duty so I could send that in ..

So I forgot to ask about the inversion table. At this point I think I'll just do whatever I think is Ok which is what I've been doing pretty much all along. I'm not into anything that could even remotely be considered high powered, intense or risk taking so I'm pretty sure that I should be OK unless a disc just blows by me bending over which is what seemed to happen originally!

Jim, I'm not quite as resourceful as you.. is that a traction type unit you designed and/or is that a surfboard in background that you're going to use to lay down on? It's cool that you did made your own version for much cheaper! btw how are you and what's going on with your surgery stuff?

Itsgoa yeah.. maybe I'll look for a used one. $299 seemed about the cheapest I've seen them in a store. Will check on Amazon.