Hi, everyone! I've been a recent regular on the Lupus board since being diagnosed
with undifferentiated connective tissue disease last summer and when I was on
prednisone for that and realized I had back pain relief for the first time in 4-5 years,
I mentioned the pain to my rheumy as well and got an MRI out of curiousity. Ouch.
Curiousity did kill the cat, didn't it? I have been fighting the back pain more and more
in the last 6 months, but thinking it was an inactive lifestyle related to my lupus
fatigue, but the MRI showed severe degeneration in my L4/L5 and moderate degeneration
in L6/S1 (I hope that's right, I'm doing this from memory). Also, I have constriction of
of something I forget, but assume it's the anterior pocket where the spinal nerves are.
Anyway, being only 44 and the mother of 4 including 2 toddlers, this has me so
depressed. I haven't even recovered from the pain of losing my mom in April of 2005 and
being diagnosed with auto-immune illness 4 months later. I haven't gone to therapy
for this yet - anyone out there give me any hope that I'll feel normal again? I am
looking into yoga classes (darn - I wish I kept that up after the kids were born!) to
get me back into stretching and somehow I have to find a way to get more exercise...
I don't want to give into cortison shots yet and definitely not surgery unless it's
the last resort....but what else can I do? Anyone else out there further down the
road on this with a similar history? Missy, if you read this I did see you on the Lupus
board, too, so I guess we are in this together, huh? lol - Laura