Back Problems

I have beyond struggled this last couple of months.  One of the MAJOR reasons why has been because of my back.  I was really enjoying doing the couch-to-5-K plan.  Every single day that I saw improvements in myself, I got excited.  It kept me feeling great and motivated.  But I began to have more and more back issues and finally in November, I had to completely give up jogging for the time being.  That's also about the same time that I started to really struggle with my weight loss and feeling discouraged.  I really think that there's a correlation between the two. 

First, a little background about my past back issues.  I have had back problems since I was 11 years old.  At that time, I was having back aches on a pretty regular basis.  I ended up being diagnosed with scoliosis.  I have two curves in my spine, and they were severe enough that I ended up having to wear a back brace for 2 years in order to keep them from getting any worse.  The 2 years was horrible, but I survived.  The worst part though was that afterwards I had lost quite a bit of back muscle.  The back brace was holding me up, causing my back muscles to weaken.  Despite the problems, I was still extremely grateful for that brace because it made sure that I didn't end up needing back surgery.  And that's something that I'm very happy about.

I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, especially because I have dealt with back problems for so many years.  When I was in high school, I started having more and more back pain.  I assumed that it was just the scoliosis, so I didn't really do anything about it.  Finally, when I was 18, I gave in and went to the back doctor.  At that time, I was diagnosed with Degenerative Disk Disease in 2 of the lower disks in my spine.  I was basically told that at the age of 18, I had the back of a 50 year old.

I was supposed to do physical therapy and was told that the best thing for me was to start exercising and being active.  Hmmm......yeah, didn't really follow that advice.  I've just continued to deal with the back pain, and basically ignore it.  I've gotten pretty good at doing that over the years!  Luckily, it hasn't been that severe for the most part, so it hasn't affected my life too much.

In September, as I've mentioned, I started jogging.  Loved it, really felt great about what I was doing.  But every week my back pain started to increase.  Also, I started having major sciatic nerve pain.  For anyone not familiar with what that is, I was having LOTS of pain in my hip and down my entire leg.  Even though the pain is in your leg, it's being caused by issues in your back.  It was so bad that I had days when I could barely walk.  Finally in November it got bad enough that I pretty much wanted to cry on a daily basis.  I spoke with several of my instructors at the gym and it was recommended that I stop jogging for the time being.  That was the only thing that I had added in that could be causing the pain.

I hoped that giving that up would improve my pain.  No such luck!  I made an appointment with my back doctor, had an x-ray as well as an MRI.  Final diagnosis - I have a disk that has both degenerative disk disease (this makes 3 disks now) and is a herniated disk.  The disk is bulging out in the back and is pushing on the nerve that runs down my left leg.  That's what's causing the sciatic nerve pain. 

I was given several options for treatment, but I decided that the best thing for me was physical therapy.  I'd rather see if I can treat this in a natural way rather than with lots of meds or nerve blocks.  So far, I have seen some improvement in my pain.  I'm far from 100%, and I still have some restrictions, but I am getting there. 

BUT - ever since I gave up jogging, I have felt stagnate and frustrated.  It's not because I can't physically do other things.  In fact, my physical therapist has put very few limitations on me.  I know that it's a mental block.  For some reason, giving up jogging has thrown me for a loop, and I have no idea why!  Maybe it's because with that jogging program, I could see real progress each and every week.  Even if my weight loss didn't cooperate that particular week, I could still see the progress in my jogging.  It was almost something tangible that I could hold on to.  A real concrete goal that I could see and feel. 

I'm not sure what changes I need to make to fix this, but something needs to change or else I'll never accomplish my goals!