Barffie The Whine Connoisseur

Get acquainted with this condition now. Many people has had it. I still have it. Jeffwee has got it. And it could be your turn, if you don’t watch out for your well-being.

The “slipped disc”, or what they called a “prolapsed disc” is a very common back problem that affects many of us office folks. People who sit around in a fixed position (sometimes in a bad posture) for too long, are the most susceptible to be afflicted with this condition.

Contrary to popular belief, the spinal disc does not slip out of position. It’s actually the softer, jelly-like substance that gives our spine the suppleness that slipped out of position, and when that happens and it presses on a nerve in the spine, you have what we call the slipped disc.

Possible Causes:
1. Sitting for long hours and not moving
2. Slouching on the couch (yes, I am guilty of that)
3. Over-stretching (could aggravate a latent condition – I sort of cocked the gun on my condition during a back bend during yoga)
4. Sleeping in a bad place (a too soft, or too hard bed; I slept on a cold hard floor one night, before I pulled the trigger on my back)

Some Symptoms (that I experienced):
1. Chronic lower back pain for years that didn’t go away entirely
2. A sharp, piercing pain in the back that reached all the way down to the calves
3. Numbness and loss of strength in my right leg (for some it may even be both legs?)
4. The action of sitting down hurts like f**k
5. The action of getting up from a seated position hurts like f**k

Initially I went through more than 6 sessions of acupuncture which relieved the acute back pain, leaving only the dull, numbing pain which didn’t get better. And then the backache came back with a vengeance, before I finally sought help with an orthopedic specialist.

At that point, I was yelling out every time I sat down and stood up, as the pain shot down from my butt cheek and numbed even my toes sometimes. It was like a horrible internal electric shock that just didn’t go away. Bed rest felt the most comfortable, but of course, with my job I couldn’t possibly lay in bed the whole day.

The Diagnosis:
Get a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, if you can afford it. It is a highly sensitive, highly accurate machine that could scan your entire body without radiation, unlike CT Scans or the regular X-Rays. I paid for it with my personal accident insurance after I busted my company’s medical plan limits (yes, 2009 was a bad year for me, physically). A ball-park figure could be anything from $500-1000 per scan on the lumbar spine region.

There are 2 types of MRI machines in Singapore, one is the Open Magnet type, which is a cheaper option; the other is a Closed Magnet type, which was the expensive type that we are used to seeing on TV – in a doughnut shape.

Initially, I felt excited to get to the inside of an MRI machine as I was a huge House M.D. fan and in the TV series, they MRI-ed patients like nobody’s business and I thought “this is gonna be cool!!”, until I really got there. The place was bloody cold, and immediately I understood that the air conditioning was optimised for the machine, not for humans.

And they gave me ear plugs. Yes, ear plugs. The machine is a whirring, whining, beeping, ticking, buzzing… thing. It’s awfully loud and noisy especially on the inside. I also had to keep very very still inside this claustrophobic space for around 30-40 minutes. The noise made it almost impossible to communicate with the radiologist through the intercom. It was nothing glamourous like in the TV series, nor silent like what we have come to expect of such high-tech medical equipment. Did I mention that this thing is insanely noisy?

So the doctor looked through my scans and showed me exactly where my spinal juice leaked and pressed on the nerve, thus causing that awful piercing pain. That also concludes his initial assessment of my condition, which means that I am bound for physiotherapy and popping Glucosamine supplements for as long as I can remember.

The So-Called Treatment:
Despite the advancement of medical science, I am afraid to say there is no real cure for this condition. Yes, you could improve the condition by going through physiotherapy sessions and modifications to your lifestyle (read: sit properly) and possibly do all that without having to resort to painkillers… but the fact is, the “slipped disc” is very likely, forever.

You have to manage the condition for the rest of your life even as you are weaned off the physiotherapy exercises and the whole shebang. I was prescribed to go on a “Med-Ex” course for 9 sessions at the Gleneagles physio centre. What the very nice therapist did was to first assess the extent of my pain levels, and then start me on an exercise routine, 2 times a week.

I first had to go through some tests, on a combination of a computer system and weight-training gym machine which trains the strength of my back. While seated, I did repetitions of forward and backward bends assisted by light weights coupled with some calibration magic on the machine. And then I had to do sets of different kinds of leg bends while lying down on the “reformer” machine, which was actually just a bench with rollers and springs underneath. I also did some light exercise on the cross-trainer, treadmill and bicycle, which was quite enjoyable as what I see as a personal fitness programme.

Initially it was pretty tough to do the entire set, but as the sessions went by and the weights got increased little by little, within 3 sessions my pain was almost completely gone. With regular stretching and strengthening exercises at home, on top of the whole 9 sessions of physiotherapy took about 2-3 months to complete. As expensive as the parking charges were, it was totally worth the effort and definitely money well-spent (and thankfully I had insurance to cover this whole thing).

I could actually sit and get up without breaking out in cold sweat again. I could walk without getting numb again. I had almost forgotten how wonderful life is without pain, until I went through this whole ordeal. A newfound appreciation for exercise and proper posture as a compulsory lifestyle component was born, apart for slimming down purposes, of course.

The AfterMath:
I am still somewhat pain-free, apart from some mornings when I woke up with a stiff back. However, this is easily solved by some cat stretchesand some other stretches before I got out of bed to get to work.

The Bottomline (for me, at the very least):
1. Sit straight with proper back support. Stop the sloppy slumps on the couch!
2. Keep moving! Don’t sit for long hours. Get up and walk around and stretch every half an hour or so.
3. My therapist says “motion is the best lotion”, which is kind of cheesy, but in a good way.
4. Take Glucosamine to strengthen the joints and soft tissue.

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So, tell me. Do you like this Retchtro article from me? Or you’d rather I whine in shorter sentences?