Well its been a while I know. This tri has been a stressful one for me lately. I think it has more to do with everything I'm juggling in my life than the actual classes. Late last year I had a series of MRI's performed on my low back, as I have had recurring episodes of severe, disabling pain. They've been happening since 2003, but lately it's gotten a lot worse, well, a lot more frequent, and with less obvious causes. So I had my younger brother, who is a Palmer grad practicing in my home town of Peoria, IL, do a physical exam on me and he agreed that I needed special imaging. I learned in my NMS class that the symptoms I had suggested a space occuping lesion, or SOL, aggravating and sometimes compressing one or more nerve roots affecting my left leg. What especially concerned me was that I have a positive Valsalva, where if you cough, sneeZe, or bear down, it causes an increase in the symptoms. Well I sneezed one day while pumping gas, and my legs literally gave out from under me. This is a "red flag" deserving of MRI, because it suggests compression of the cord itself, when the symptoms are bilateral, as they were. Cord compression in the lumbar region is known as Cauda Equina Syndrome. This is a serious neurological condition that can result in loss of bowel and bladder function, which can be life threatening. Another possible result is loss of motor function to the legs, obviously something that I don't want to happen! Well the MRI confirmed our fears. I actually have four herniated discs, at L1, L2, L3, and L4. The first three are posterolateral protrusions that are encroaching into the intervertebral foramen, or IVF, lateral to the nerve root. This is actually the type of herniated disc that responds best to Chiropractic care, sometimes even immediately. This corresponds to my previous chiropractic care results, where sometimes I would come in to the Doctor in a wheelchair, and able to walk out after the appointment. I love it when that happens, but it doesn't always, unfortunately. Well the L4 disc has herniated straight posterior, meaning it is actually hitting the spinal cord. In that region the cord has already broken up into individual nerve roots, and is no longer a single cord. In dissection it looks alot like a horse's tail, hence Cauda Equina, latin for "horse's tail". With posterior protrusions care is a lot less successful, and in my case this seems to hold true. At this point, it seems that when these discs are fired up, all of my back muscles in that region, called paraspinal muscles in general, are spasming. It takes a lot of therapy to relieve the spasming, like triggerpoint therapy or an aspect of Sacral Occipital Technique, or S.O.T., called blocking, where you're placed laying with your pelvis on wedges, placed depending on the symptoms, to release the spasms. Supposedly it also restores Cerebrospinal fluid flow from the Occiput down to the Sacrum, but this is a little understood theory with far-reaching claims but little scientific data to support it. Not saying it's not true, more that science hasn't caught up with the claim. We're really just scratching the surface of our understanding of this amazing structure, the human body. I love it! Anyway back to my disc problem. Nothing can be done to reverse the damage to these discs, especially L4. So my care at this point is therapeutic at best. We've determined that a surgery, called a discectomy, will be at some point necessary. I'm debating when would be best to do this. Do I elect to do it, before absolutely needed? Or do I wait to see how long I can go before that's the case? At this point I'm leaning towards the latter, as I hate the idea of going into surgery right now in my life. But if the episodes, which render me pretty much paralyzed for up to two weeks, continue to be more and more frequent, it will really strain my ability to get through the program here at Palmer. So I guess I'm playing it by ear at this point. Well gotta go for now, time for P.T. class!