13 Months Post Op

[letteski]

Yesterday I celebrated my anniversary with a 10-mile mountain bike ride. You can read all the details and see photos on Powered by ProDisc. I faired pretty good just a bit tight and stiff. I road the strongest I have all season could have been the fact that I was riding with my PT. I am back in PT these days working on troubles with my right SI joint. The back is bomber no facet pain just right hip pain that might be a lingering problem from the fall of the roof almost 2 years ago. PT is helping and I hope thats all I need.

My question is what are some ways to diagnose SI issuers? Can an MRI diagnose a problem? Does ADR interfere with an MRI? With ski season around the corner I want to be as strong and pain free as I can.

[chasswen]

thats great news paulette. im sorry to hear of your si joint pain hopefully pt can get a cap on that pain. and its just great watching your progress its very impressive. i can only hope i have half as much pep and go as you do. keep up the great work.
chuck

[Jim M2]

Paulette,

That's fantastic!! I thought the pictures would show you rolling down a paved road. No way, you were really doin the off-road mountain thing.

I have an lumbar MRI of a L5S1 and the ADR pretty much wiped out the image at L5S1 level. A little further down the sacrum and the image gets normal.

I have some recollection of forum patients having nerve block injections in the sacrum. There's some SI links here:
http://www.kalindra.com/

Take care,
Jim

[letteski]

Chuck and Jim,

Thanks for your support. I hope my recovery inspires others to hang in there, give their recovery time and then do what you can to get strong again.

I have to add lots of rest between my workouts and was not able to hit it hard again until Wed. PT is making a big difference with my hip. It consists of manipulation and specific exercises to strengthen week muscles groups and lots of stretching.

Chuck have you started any PT yet? I did not get started until 8 weeks post-op and began in the pool.

[chasswen]

hi paulette
yes i started pt arround 6 1/2 weeks and it has been reg type pt. but i saw a major diff after the first visit as my legs forgot there job. and hurt big time. but as of now they are alot better still hurt but more under control. thank god.
i am 8 1/2 weeks postop still doing pt only problem i still have is my legs aka distraction pain which dr. b told me i would have alot of. as i was starting to fuse at the level adr was to be done at. and i grew a full inch so needless to say my legs are really yelling at me lol
but is inproving and i hope to return to work 10/23 just under
the 12 week mark.
i still wake up with my legs feeling like i slept on them all night.
at first that feeling would last 4 hrs. and now it lasts abot 1 hr.
so i am in proving day by day and the roller coaster type recovery has calmed alot. again thank god
thanks for asking.
chuck

[letteski]

Chuck,

So glad that things are feeling better. Sounds like you made a good choice to get things taken care of when you did. The good thing with distraction pain is that it will go away in time at least mine did. Do you feel a difference after you get up and start moving around? I did but I had to be careful that I did not over do it. My PT did not put his hands on me just head the rains and had to hold me back. I have never been very good at listening not even to my body. As you can see I am an adrenalin junkie and it is a good pain reliever but gives me the tendency to suffer a bit afterwards from over doing it.

[chasswen]

paulette
yes after getting up and moving about does help a great deal.
i poblem with pt is i am 47 and stand for a living so they have my legs bending in directions that they never have. lol
i was never one with alot of get up and go. for years its taken all i have to get to and from work.
hopefully this will get me abit more active.
heheh and after checking out your blog i see you are doing enough for both of us.
chuck