I recently hurt my back while at work. I was doing something I have done a thousand times and this time, it was too much.
The workers comp doctor took two months to even consider doing an MRI, and he only did that when I was able to notice that my right leg was going numb/pin and needles whenever one of the aggravated spots in my back was hurting severely.
Once the MRI was finally done, the results of that are being dismissed as pre-existing arthritis and degenerative disk disease. This came as an absolute shock as there is no family history of DDD, and until that day at work, my back has never hurt beyond a few moments of stiffness here and there immediately after waking up.
Now, I can't even begin to function on an acceptable level day to day due to the pain. I can't stand, drive, or sit for more than 10-15 minutes at a time without bringing on severe pain and muscle spasms. When the upper spot acts up, I get muscle tremors in my hands and fingers, when the lower one acts up, I get either severe pain or numbness all the way down to my outer 3 toes on my right foot.
I feel the doctor tried to brush it off as non-severe for the first two months just to try to get me back to work. Even now, it seems he is trying to brush it off as "pre-existing".
He wants me to undergo a questionable treatment for the muscle spasms called dry needling which I am very much against. For one, I absolutely hate needles. Secondly, It is treating a symptom, not the problem. Unfortunately I don't have much of a choice but to go through with it or he will clear me for work despite knowing there is absolutely no way I can work, even at a desk job at this point.
On that, I am very close to finding an attorney seeing as I had absolutely no symptoms of DDD or any traumatic injuries to my spine outside of work.
For anyone interested, I first noticed problems while emptying a trash can at work.
I work in produce and we have these 55 gallon cans that off-cuts and rinds from melons get put into. There are supposed to be 4 bags per can which brings the weight per bag to roughly 60 pounds. There has however been an on going issue where one of the employees cutting fruit will only use three or even two bags per can. This employee doesn't care to use more, as they are never the one to empty the cans afterwards. This has been an ongoing problem for well over a year and has been brought to management's attention multiple times yet nothing gets done.

As for the pain, when it hits hard, it is all I can do to not curl up and beg for it to end or kill me. My daily life may as well be non existent for all I can manage to do with the pain.
I've been taking Hydrocodone for the last 2 months which was helping with the pain. It didn't come close to eliminating it, but it made it more manageable. The problem now is that I have built a severe tolerance to it. I may as well be taking ibuprofen for all the good it does now. I also do not like it because it badly messes with my mood when it wears off to the point I am afraid to take it any more for how little relief it provides.

I have looked into CBD oil as a potential replacement, however I am not in a state that allows it as far as I know. (alabama in case someone here knows something) I also don't know if it would be effective for this purpose or to what extent.
At this point, I am at a loss for what to do just to be able to make it day by day.
I am hoping someone on here can give me some advice for relieving the pain, whether with CBD, or something else entirely.
If I come to think CBD would provide relief, it is something I would be willing to try, even with where I live.
If not, other options would be greatly appreciated.

OK, here's how I dealt with a busted disk:

At first the pain would literally knock me down. During that period I basically rested and smoked lots of pot. I was also taking papain (papaya/pawpaw enzyme) supplement to help dissolve any stray bits of disk. Eating fresh or sundried pineapple also helps. I think I got some shiatsu treatments as well, but you have to be clear with the practitioner about any disk conditions, obviously. This was a while ago and things are a bit hazy but I seem to recall I tried to remain as physically active as I could. Hanging upside down on a regular basis also helped. This was quite normal for me as it had been an important part of the physical training program I'd been doing for the preceding year or so.

Once the pain had abated I started doing a lot of physical work with medium to heavy loading - but always being conscious of the core body strength. If you've not been doing core body strength training already, now would be the time to start finding out about it. Learn about the anatomy of your pelvic and abdominal musculature. These are muscles are your friends. They'll help to take the strain of your back.

All in all, improve the connection with your body. Hydrocodone does pretty much the exact opposite of this.

Keep moving and improve your core strength and overall flexibility as best you can.

Any doctor worth their salt would at least direct you towards some useful stretching and strengthening exercises to help take the pressure off your spine.

Really, staying mobile is the key to, er, staying mobile. For me, the pain has seldom completely gone away but that's not surprising considering there's no disk between my lowest lumbar vertebra and my sacrum. Attempting to deny pain will get you nowhere, your endorphins are also your friends - another thing that hydrocodone doesn't help with.

So to start with, lie on your back on a firm surface - a bit of level padding to aid comfort is OK - then hug your knees to your chest. Allow your back to relax. Wiggle your hips from side to side and feel how your back loosens up.

If you feel ready, stretch one leg out by sliding your foot along the floor while still holding on to the other leg. Make sure your pelvis stays level and stable by tightening your pelvic floor muscles about 80% and pulling your stomach muscles in. Gentle bring the leg back to the chest and repeat with the other leg. Alternate this a few times, concentrate on how your back muscles start to relax, all the while keeping your pelvis stable.

When you've done this regularly for a while you might feel ready to do the leg stretch with your foot just above floor level so that you're supporting the whole weight of your leg, but build up your strength slowly first.

Look for online instructions and/or seek out a Pilates or yoga group. I'm no expert but I know what has helped me.

Saunas and hot tubs are also great

For what it's worth, if you came into my practice and you absolutely refused getting acupuncture (I don't know of anyone who likes needles), this is what I'd recommend (I would recommend this on top of acupuncture anyway just so you know and actually cupping therapy would probably serve you better in this case, but good luck finding someone who practices cupping in Alabama).

Do your own research on these three supplements and if you have any further questions you may PM me if you so choose:

Du Huo Hi Shen Tang

Vitalzym Xe

Ionic Fizz Magnesium Plus

In that order of importance.

All are available online.

Best of luck.

Sincerely,

Doc Buxin

High dose turmeric as an anti inflammatory. You might want to also try valerian root at night for any sciatic numbness. Kava works well to loosen the muscles. I find a ratio of 1/1 CBD to THC works best for myself. All of these I was taking for similar issues, but large doses of extracts and pure kavalactones etc. The kava was to help me sleep and keep my muscles relaxed in my back.

My issue is different from yours but with some similar symptoms. I have an auto immune arthritis effecting largely my pelvis and spine..it's caused damage to vertebrae in my spine as well as messed up my pelvis. I had at one point lost a large portion of feeling in my right foot, down my leg etc...

You will want to remove that pressure on the nerve as much as possible, and strengthen your core. I ended up hobbling around feeling broken from ankylosing spondylitis and then a hernia from having weak core strength and trying to overcompensate etc.

Id be taking alot of amino acids and joint supplements if I was you and drinking lots of water.

You should be seeing a specialist if someone thinks you have arthritis in your spine, and they should be making that decision.

Try this stuff it works
https://www.amazon.com/D...-Quercetin/dp/B004AP4PA2

It's not cheap but it's effective. I've had severe back issues.
Eventually I had to get 2 epidurals wich worked but weren't cheap either. My natural Dr. Recommended Imflammatone and also another one to take in conjunction . It's was s turmeric based supplement (curcumin). I can't remember the name of the other one but the concept was to hit the pain on different receptor pathways.
Quercetin also had anti-inflammatory qualities . I feel for you,
Back pain like you describe is the worst thing ever .
I know the pain is constant and is always there.
Keep moving if you can , keep stretching . Eventually
It will ease up . When mine was at its worst I thought it would never go away I became very depressed about it . But over time
It eased up and now I have it managed .I'm super careful about
Lifting and moving heavy stuff . Best of luck to you

For now, I think I am going to go through with one session of the dry needling the doctor is pushing so hard for. I don't think it will help as the pain is not in the muscle tissue, but with the nerves being pinched and pressed on. At best, it somehow does help, at worst, it gives me leverage to get a referral to a back specialist.

Won't be doing any hanging or spinal traction. Tried that at physical therapy (thank god the physical therapist actually cares) and it provided very temporary relief up the the point the tension was released. I'm not much of a fan of herbal supplements for reasons I prefer not to go into. However I may try curcumin when I can as I keep seeing that one a lot. At this point, CBD is looking to be a very likely choice despite my location. Not like anyone would have a reason to know anyways.

Doesn't help that the worker's comp doctor outright told me after giving the diagnosis, that all a back specialist can do is confirm the diagnosis and clear me for work. I'm outright fed up with him and let him know I did not agree with his previous diagnosis on the follow up appointment he finally ordered an MRI during. The only new symptom was the numbness going down my leg which is not near constant and a serious concern of mine. Hydrocodone was probably covering up this symptom until I built a tolerance to it.
The day I finally told my manager I needed to get paperwork filled out to go see a doctor, a nerve in my upper back got pinched shifting 3 pounds of weight and nearly sent me to the floor from both the pain and every muscle contracting at once from shoulders down.

I should probably mention, most of the pain is in 2 or 3 points in my upper back. The lowest of those is 2-3 disks below my shoulder blades. That is the one that seems to be causing the numbness as the numbness gets worse when that point hurts more.

I'm also trying to remain as active as I can but can only do so much when the pain gets severe enough to cause muscle spasms. That and moving much or lifting any weight whatsoever aggravates it severely.

I apologize if this is hard to read, it isn't easy to keep my thoughts straight right now with everything going on.

Pain. I know it well. Gout sufferer here.

I'm not sure if it can be used in this case, but TENS therapy can be pretty good at masking the pain signal by dumping a bunch of noise on the nerve.


As to the trash can thing. I've been there. In my case they were only using 1 bag. I repeatedly complained to management. Nothing changed. Then I told them if it continued and the bags were more than 30lbs then I wouldn't touch the trash and risk personal injury for the job and someone else could take care of it, preferably him. When 5 trash cans were left completely full overnight and the manager had to take them out the next morning it miraculously stopped.

TENS therapy is definitely something I can try soon.

I really do believe emptying these over-filled bags into the compactor at work caused the DDD seeing as I had never experienced any sort of repetitive strain or injury before. Until this, it was just sore wrists, a sore left knee and occasionally sore hips from the arthritis I have had since I was 15. At not even quite 23 years old, I find it very hard to believe the DDD could have been pre-existing as the doctor is trying to write it off as.

You know, this whole mess this year is really making me seek DMT's guidance again however I promised someone dear I would not.

This year has been a complete mess.

Good call on the TENS machine - I recently got one but I haven't tried it yet.

Curcumin will also help boost your mood as well as its anti-inflammatory effect. You might want to look into which foods promote inflammation in your body and thus avoid them.

One more thing, I've also found celery seed to be very helpful, either as the powdered seeds or as the extract (which some people prefer as the flavour of the seeds is very strong).

It looks like you're still young enough to get through this with the appropriate physical training. Don't give up hope! Core body strength is key.

Two further herbal suggestions: Prickly ash bark (Zanthoxylum americanum) and Cramp bark (Viburnum opulus).

Good luck.

I'm not an expert or use it, but what about Kratom?

Be aware that Curcumin's bioavailability is extremely poor on account of hepatic and intestinal glucuronidation.

In this study researchers found that cocomittant administration of piperine increased bioavailability by 2000% in humans. And I remember Rhonda Patrick talking about this either on her site or show before.

Yes, adding lots of black pepper to anything with turmeric in it comes as such second nature to me that it's easy to forget to mention this important caveat!

Not only that, but due to Curcuma longa's energetics, it wouldn't really even get to the lower back area of the body unless it is combined with an herb that has a specific affinity for the Kidney system (lower body/back/legs, etc.). Piper nigrum (black pepper) fits the bill perfectly in that regard.

Additionally, Curcumia longa has a cooling energetic whereas Piper nigrum has a warming energetic, which will balance the combo well.