Hi Squizzy,
I'm resting at my computer after a morning spent hand-raking, shovel loading, and spreading gravel. Plus picking up decorative stone and blocks, and doing some painting inside the house early on.
Like you, I mis-spent my youth at football, hockey, and working in farm fields picking pickles and potatoes. Then I was ejected from a sliding Ford sedan rear seat -- thorough the closed door window -- when it was hit just behind the door by a Nash Rambler. I cracked two vertebra in my neck, had many other serious injuries, and my back has hurt ever since. That wreck was in 1964.
That didn't stop the Navy from accepting me in 1966, I had two legs, two arms, and I was breathing. That's all that counted.
Now, after 40 some years, I'm still kicking, well, not very hard that is. I've been in more wrecks, been crushed by falling trees, operated and repaired heavy mining and construction equipment, even been shot at and missed a few times. I am lucky to still be alive.
I fell ill to severe rheumatoid arthritis in 2001, had hints of it before in 1995. I've had bad knees for years starting around 1980 with several arthroscopic operations. I went into management and got away from daily wrench-bending and cat-skinning, though I every once in a while would do some of one or the other. I finally had both knees replaced in 2004, and to date, they are fine. The constant pain with them is gone and I can walk without crutches.
My back is another matter. It always hurts. It is at it's worst first thing in the morning upon getting out of bed. It takes an hour or so to settle down to a "tolerable" level of pain. One reason for this is the arthritis, and all the banging around I've taken over the years. The other is that for reasons involving good food and a generous lack of exercise, I have put on several pounds since I got married 34 years ago. This increased weight and it's location, have a lot to do with the back pain.
If I lost 60 pounds, I'd probably feel very good in the back. But I haven't weighed that little since junior high school. I won't tell you what I think of "quackopracters," since this is a family journal, but suffice to say they would not do me any good.
My wife went to one for years and she's worse off now than when she started. She is using a morphine-based pain killer to get by on. She also has a condition called "facet arthritis." This is a loss of the cushion between the facet angles on the vertebra in the spine. When bare bone nerves meet bare bone nerves, the pain is exquisite.
I have used a lot of aspirin and Naproxen for the pain over the years, plus a combination of very expensive arthritis medications, and Darvocet and aspirin together. That's when I was really bad off and couldn't walk. That helped the pain, but also caused Diverticulitis and eventually resulted in a perforated colon, a colostomy, deep vein thrombosis with clots in my lungs twice, and other very bad things.
After surviving all that, I went on to use another expensive arthritis medication, without the aspirin, but continued using the Darvocet as needed. I also used Prednisone and some other stuff and in fact, still am. The other stuff is Methotrexate.
Since my bout with Valley Fever last fall, I can no longer use the high dollar arthritis med. It contributed to a condition known as "compromised immune system." Since Valley Fever stays in the body, I now have to let my immune system recover, which may not help the arthritis, but at least my lungs won't disappear.
The good news is that the previous medications reduced my RA factor from over 800 down to 60 or so. Nearly normal my doc says. So right now, I don't feel too bad except when I over do it. I'm coming off the prednisone slowly, and let me tell you, this stuff isn't easy to get away from. Painful!
The bad news is that my lower backbones are in tough shape due to the many bad things I've done to them, the two types of arthritis, the extra weight I've packed for many years, and my age about 60. The Prednisone by the way, makes losing weight an even harder thing to do. Last year when I was operating a Cat and was off the stuff for several months, I was losing steadily at around four to five pounds a week. Doc doubts however, that even if I lost a lot of weight that my back will ever recover.
My brother had some trouble with arthritis, and he tried everything over the counter he could get his hands on. He was always trying to get me to try some of the stuff he had. But I'd check it with my doctor and he's say it was of no benefit. That Glaucosomine you mentioned is a big seller here and my brother tried it too. But a few weeks or months later my brother would be trying something else. He went to a quackopracter for a while too and that only lightened his wallet. So, when he got really bad, he'd hit the booze pretty hard. I understand from his widow that this didn't go down too well with her. I have a 70 something brother-in-law that swears by the Glaucosomine however. Takes it faithfully every day.
RollOver Pete and I, and probably you and many others share in the numbness in feet and hands. This is generally from a condition called Peripheral Neuropathy, which can be caused by arthritic afflictions, but also by exposure to chemicals like Agent Orange, though the Veterans Administration says NO!!.... It can also be a sign of Diabetes, so get checked out for that Pete. I had a friend that died because he was diagnosed too late for treatment. He suffered for several years with burning feet and hands.
I'm hoping to return to work in a couple of weeks. I've recovered from the Fever and the Hernia surgery in March and I feel pretty good. The first two to three weeks out on a Cat are the hardest, especially in rock. But I seem to toughen up after that. But like Pete, scrapers are generally a young man's game and you gotta climb way up on loaders. So I'm going to try to stick with a Cat and see how I do.
Good luck!
...plus weight gain, high cholesterol............
