For those of you who haven’t experienced crippling back pain, it is more intense than you can understand.
One time, I had to be dragged across the house on a blanket by my aging father to get to the power lift chair because I fell down trying to get out of bed.
Another time, I had a flare-up and had to lay in the bed of my truck while a friend drove me home because I couldn’t bend my leg to get in the car.
I’ve shit myself rather than try to get up and go to the bathroom because of the pain.
And yes, the insurance company tried to deny the epidural I received that probably ended up saving me from eventual suicide.
That one injection in my spine has kept the sciatica from affecting my legs and within 24 hours my life had changed.
And it took an extra 4 months because the insurance company at first denied it, then approved it, but only for a 2-day window so I couldn’t schedule the procedure, and I ended up having to go to the Board of Insurance twice.
4 months where I’d get flare-ups that made putting on pants an hour-long process. 4 months where I couldn’t visit friends because I didn’t want to risk getting stranded at their house unable to walk. 4 months where I could barely work because sitting at the computer was nearly impossible.
I hate violence, but if I’d have met one of the insurance company heads during those 4 months, I might have shot them.
Whenever I read about the US healthcare system I wonder why it’s CEOs are not gunned down every single day.
I hurt my back doing construction. The company I sacrificed my back to wouldn’t cover the cost of my physical therapy. The pain has got me in trouble at other jobs too. I was in the lab and bent over to pick up something that fell on the ground only for my back pain to flare up again. The pain was so intense it took everything I had just to stand up again and then I could barely move. My coworkers and supervisor were very annoyed that I could barely move when there were criticals that I was working on.
As someone with crippling migraines, I am never ever questioning how debilitating someone else’s pain is.
I get migraines - not as bad now, post menopause and on low dose daily HRT that seems to prevent most of them.
But absolutely the worst pain I’ve ever felt is migraine, and I’ve had unmedicated childbirth, broken bones, plenty of injuries, IUDs put in, nothing has even approached the pain level of a migraine. I used to not understand when the doctor would ask how bad it hurt on scale of 1-10 because it exists outside that scale.
Back pain I think is similar, but probably its own sort of hell because it immobilizes people.
That part about the pain scale is spot on. HRT and adequate anxiety and pain medication have made mine less common and intense too. I don’t know how or why though.
Imho the weirdest thing about migraines is when you’re 4 to 5 hours deep and suddenly your brain goes out in a bang. The pain subsides for a bit and you feel that weird euphoric feeling.
The third pain that can compare to that according to what I’ve heard is tooth ache. Although I’m blessed enough to never have had any issues in that department.
I think it just smooths out the ups and downs; birth control pills made mine so much worse, I didn’t realize it until I had to stop them, and it made me very wary of the HRT but it is the opposite effect somehow. Anti anxiety probably same, the main trigger I have now is relaxation - if I am busy or stressed, then it eases, I will wake up with a headache. So I’d imagine if the stress itself is interrupted and the intense relaxation also, that would help.
I’ve experienced migraines of all severity levels since I was a teenager. I have a top 5 list of the worst migraines I’ve ever experienced. Number 3 was the one where my husband found me sitting at the kitchen table with a spoon in my hand completely out of it. When he asked me what I was doing I told him I was considering gouging my eye out. Number 2 was the three days I lost to absence seizures. I actually called out of work twice within a few hours because my autopilot is strong and my brain was gone. I almost lost my job for that one. Number one was the time literally crawled through the house on my belly for the phone and gave up in the living room before passing out. All I can remember of that one was laying there feeling my heart beat in my fucking eyelashes for what felt like ages. That was the one that made me go see a neurologist. I would never ever not believe someone’s pain experience.
I used to get those too when I was younger. I don’t envy you a bit there. I haven’t had one in over 20 years and the memory of them still frightens me.
I’ve had exactly one migraine and at every spike of it I remembered those stories of people who shoot themselves because of pain and was sad in the moment (but happy after) that I didn’t have a gun cuz I’d have absolutely used it
I would get blind spots in my vision about an hour before migraines would hit.
My plan if I ever see them again is to take my pistol to the truck and lock it in the hidden gun safe before going back inside and waiting for the migraine to hit.
I usually don’t get the blind spots before the pain sets in. My signs are muscle contractions in the neck and/or face and sudden sinus congestion on one side of the face.
I’m glad I don’t have the codes to the gun cabinet lol. I’ve broken two fingers by punching a wall repeatedly once. (actually twice…)
You know what has radicalized me the most? Getting a fucking math degree and understanding precicely how evil capitalism at large, but insurance companies in particular, is. To see the falsehoods they peddle because the consumers of their propaganda do not know what is being said. To see how they skirt and cheat every guard rail put in place to make sure that there is some level of ethics using statistics and a bit of other math bullshit. It is disgusting, egregious, and downright infuriating.
I’ve worked in healthcare for over 20 years, and the fact is that licensed, well trained, and caring individuals are forced to waste hours a day getting ‘approval’ from non-licensed high school educated insurance reps to try and justify their treatments. There can be entire departments dedicated to just dealing with insurance companies at pretty much every hospital, but often times insurance companies will only talk with the actual clinicians that care for patients.
The entire practice is fucked. First of all non-licensed non-medical people should not be dictating the treatment of care. Whether it’s directly or by means of denying coverage. Second of all there should be absolutely no way that they should even be allowed to look at your private medical records. And finally when it comes to something like auto insurance there are laws that insurance companies cannot steer customers to certain repair shops or dealerships. And yet when it comes to our health, health insurance companies are able to set up elaborate networks that essentially do the exact same thing they steer customers to certain institutions and prohibit them from going to others.
The entire setup of our health care industry seems like it would be at odds with most of our well-established laws regarding insurance, PHI Access, and delivery of medical care.
This is going to become more and more of a problem since the working conditions are burning out clinicians at alarming rates
they love the poorly educated
I’ll give you a couple of caveats. (1) There is such a thing as Mutual Insurance, where the company is owned by its policy holders. Assuming they don’t have massive overheads, there is at least an ethical version of insurance that does exist. And (2) C’mon USA, get your fucking act together and do government health insurance. (signed, Canada)
We have some insurance vendors that are mutual, but when it comes to health, vision, and dental you don’t get much of a choice (unless you want to spend even more money and go with a different plan than your work supplies assuming that it’s part of your benefits package in the first place).
I speak as a member of the country that indeed needs to get our shit together (like come on, every other country has this figured out).
Watch your back people have disappeared for less.
What is this picture of? I’m not sure I get it.
This was an attempted correction for a L5-S1 Spondy. Basically the 5th lumbar vertebra slips anterior (forward) over the sacrum. This stretches the spinal cord, causing pain. The correction was attempted by using posterior fixation pedicle screws and rods to pull the 5th lumbar vertebra posterior (backwards) relative to the sacrum.
Based on this image, it’s hard to say - but very possible that this expensive procedure did not improve the pain the patient was experiencing. The spondy is still clearly present.
The vertebrae needn’t come back to its place but still give pain relief in the long term by giving it stability. It is usually accompanied by other procedures which also reduces strain on the nerve giving relief.
BTW I am a surgeon treating and operating for back pain.
Yep, this is correct. It’s not possible to conclusively determine the outcome of this particular procedure without a pre-op x-ray and the patient’s feedback.
I’m sending you my MRI. We can discuss it later this afternoon, right?
As long as it’s lumbar or cervical spine related, sure! But I’m not a doctor, just have spent a few years designing implants for these procedures. :)
can you tell if this image off-angle or are the pins not parallel?
looks excruciatingly painful
Looking at the vertebral body endplates, I’d say this shot is off of a true lateral by some small amount. The screw placement looks OK (or at least, not glaringly bad) to me, I’d need higher resolution or an AP (anterior-to-posterior) to say for sure.
This is Luigi Mangione’s xray, showing his back pain issue.
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Pain certainly make you see things differently.
