My ongoing medical woes in Da Nang, Vietnam

I never really saw myself having spinal issues before I turned 50 and I'm quite surprised that this is where I find myself now. You see, although I was a beer swizzler from about the age of 19 until now, I was also always quite healthy in almost every other way. I was a gym rat all through my 20's even going to lift during my lunch break and spending just 10 minutes eating, and 40 minutes working out. I have always been quite dedicated to staying fit and when I moved to Thailand in my late 20's I had a job doing something physical as well.

I don't feel like I deserve these issues but I think two factors have probably contributed negatively to me being in this situation. For one thing, like most people, I have terrible posture when seated at a desk and like a lot of people, I sit at a desk pretty frequently. I don't know if this really had that much impact on me being in the state I am in now, but it certainly couldn't have helped.

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I think the thing that was the most impactful was likely an actual impact that happened where I slipped badly coming down some wet stairs and completely busted my ass, landing on precisely the affected area, years ago during a rainstorm. There's no way to know for sure but seeing as how that was pretty damn close to the spot where my body hit the ground and I haven't had any other injuries in many years, that it seems likely to be the case.

I will say this as a word of advice to people out there. If you do ever fall and land with your spine at all, maybe go get that checked out and don't be a stubborn asshole like I was and wait until the pain is debilitating before you do anything about it. I don't know what they could have possibly done for me, but it probably would have been better than the "nothing" that ended up doing for myself.

So after 2 extensive (and relatively expensive) visits to the hospital and doing every single scan and test that they can think of, I've just finished off my 2nd set of medications and honestly, I don't think that anything has improved.

This second set of medication was a lot more aggressive than the first round and once I found out that they essentially just gave me ibuprofen on the first round, I Was pretty pissed off about that. I don't need a doctor to get ibuprofen. GTFOH

This second round of stuff, sort of at my insistence that they either give me something that works or nothing at all, included an anti-inflammatory called Celebrx as well as a tablet steroid called Methylprednisolone (have fun with that one) but I believe it is a kind of anti-inflammatory as well. I didn't go to medical school, I don't know. I just know it is cortisone-like and cortisone is the go-to for spinal sort of stuff.

Unfortunately, none of these things have really helped all that much although I didn't struggle to bowl, so I guess it is doing something.

The problem is that I cannot exercise properly and was really starting to enjoy the gains I was seeing as far as my running stamina was concerned. Now that we have entered the god-awful hot season part of the year, there are a lot of reasons to not run but the fact that I struggle to walk at all after even a short run of 4-5k says to me that I shouldn't do that.

But I actually WANT to do it, just can't

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While I am afraid of it and needles just in a general sense, this is likely going to be the next step. It's called an epidural steroid injection and it looks terrifying.

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I really am not looking forward to having a long as hell needle carefully placed between the disks in my spine, but if it means that I can be free of discomfort and pain for 3-6 months, I will endure whatever sort of immediately pain that it will cause. It has been my experience that injections never really hurt as much as you think they are going to and often it is actually the liquid moving around inside you that hurts much worse than the actual stabby-stabby.

This has been a really frustrating couple of months for me because honestly, I felt better when I was just a kind of fat lump that would drink beer every day and ordered whatever food he felt like every day. Let's just say I was having a lot of pizza.

I guess this is probably better for me and the problem with the spine would have happened anyway, it would have just taken me a longer amount of time to realize it. The increase in physical activity made me more aware of the injury but if the doctor's solution is to "stop exercising" that would really surprise me since normally that is what they suggest everyone do MORE of.

While the pain and discomfort originates in my lumbar area of my spine, the part that really is noticeable when I do exercise is more so in my hip / pelvis area.

When I go back to the hospital for a check up on monday at 9am, I am going to be rather insistent that we take a more aggressive approach.

Here is the thing about living in Vietnam. The pharmaceutical industry just kind of pretends to be controlled. If you want to, it is actually quite easy to find a pharmacy that will sell you whatever the hell you want with or without a prescription.. but I really would prefer to follow the advice of a medical professional.

But then again, I HAVE been following the advice of a medical professional for the past month and I have seen no improvement. The next step will be to seek relief by any means necessary, even if that means getting my meds from a pharmacist that doesn't give a damn about the system.

What would you do if you were in my situation? I'm kind of running out of options here.