My Frustration Update

I know a lot of you have been praying for me, so I figured I'd go ahead and post an update concerning my back.

Since my last post I continued to search out various options on what to do for my back pain.  I had stopped doing the stretches the Physical Therapy guy gave me and it seemed to help some, but I was still having pains in my left leg and I even started to limp.  The following Monday I went for my first OB appointment hoping that she could maybe refer me to someone.  According to her, the pains in my leg were due to the fact that my pelvic muscles aren't strong enough.  Uhhhh.......ok.  She gave me an unofficial referral to another physical therapist.  I would of taken on unofficial referral to a chiropractor, but why pay for a physical therapist when the one on post was free and didn't seem to be helping.?.  Another dead end.

I went ahead and set up another appointment with the Physical Therapist on Post that I had been seeing.  I went in at 3 PM on Wednesday afternoon.  He gave me a different stretch to do, and I did probably about 15 repetitions of it in his office.  He agreed that there was probably a pinched nerve, but according to him..nothing he could do about it.  About 15/20 minutes after I left his office, I could tell that my leg was getting worse.  After dinner, I pretty much went back in my room and laid on my bed.  My 9 PM I couldn't put any pressure on my left leg and couldn't walk on my own.  (I can't tell you how grateful I am that my husband is home!)

The following three days were ROUGH!  The mornings were always better, but by lunch I was normally in a lot of pain and just plain tired.  I was still having trouble walking.  Usually once I got up and going I could do it on my own, just with a limp.  Ryan was a great help during the day when Tim was at work to help get me across the living room until I could get to a wall to help support myself.

In the meantime, I had also contacted the local Yoga instructor hearing great things about her and hoping that she could help in some way.  It looked promising at first, but then I told her I was pregnant and again...I got a no.  Another dead end.  She currently does not have her pre-natal yoga training and didn't feel comfortable coming up with a specialized treatment for me.

On Thursday morning, I was able to have a German spouse come over and help me make some phone calls to a few chiropractors.  The first one, and the closest (about 40 minutes away) was on vacation till August 14th.  We called the 2nd closest, in Munich, which is about 2 hours and 15 minutes away.  I made an appointment for the following Tuesday.

On Sunday, I was also finally able to talk to my sister.  My sister is gifted in the medical field and I can't keep track of what she's trained in or how many degrees she has...but she has done Sports Medicine for years, and is EMT certified...about the only two I can remember.  After about 5 minutes of me explaining my pain to her...over the phone...she knew exactly what the problem was (later confirmed by the chiropractor), and in about 10 minutes gave me about 5 exercises to do that should help release some of the pressure on my pinched nerve.  LOVE HER!!  (Makes me less fond of the Physical Therapy guy here.)

Spare you some of the other details in between...a friend and I drove down to Munich on Tuesday and let me just say....I LOVE CHIROPRACTORS!!!!  She wasn't able to give me a full adjustment since I'm pregnant but whatever she did do made a HUGE difference.  It wasn't an immediate fix since I still limped out of the office.  I felt sore that night so I made sure to ice when I got home, but I felt 10x's better on Wednesday, and by Thursday "practically" normal!!!  Best part; I haven't limped since Tuesday! 

I don't plan on going back unless it's gets unbearable again, but I'm so glad to know where they are and to be done with the search of having to locate one.  I'm praying that by sticking with the exercises my sister gave me, and scheduling a daily walk back into my day, it will help to keep the problem at it's minimum.  I really do appreciate all your prayers!  As a celebration of feeling better, we cleaned the house this weekend!  (Something that hasn't been done in a few weeks!)