[Slinkeycats]

I posted a reply to another member's post about understanding their sentiments and misery. I too am dealing with this unbelievable agony and nightmare of a life right now. I am getting nowhere with these docs in Indiana and realize I'm going to have to travel and pay out of pocket to get any help. My insurance is only in Indiana and realizing its pathetic at best. Hopefully one of these docs that do VATS accept cash patients. Thankfully I can manage this. It's not what I had hoped since I pay for insurance, but all I want is my life back. I have always been an athlete and a very strong woman. I have worked out since I was in 7th grade and am now 45. Until this injury, I was always very very young for my age because of working out. I was on my daily 6 mile run when this intense pain came over me and it was all I could do to get home. Thankfully I was about 5 miles into it when this happened. I came home and iced it and put heat on it, did all the exercises I would have had a client do if they came to me with something like this. I used to be a personal trainer at Chicago Health Club. I also went to school for nursing and did most of my clinical s in physical therapy as I had considered switching my major into that field. I am a day trader now so I don't practice my degrees and very thankful right now because there's no way I could be working like this. But having did all the things that should have helped me, I went to a chiropractor, acupuncture, physical therapy, injections, etc, etc, etc. 3 yrs and counting and I'm only getting so much worse and no closer to getting help if I stay local. I have read good and bad on Dr Regan. Are there any other docs that anyone has gone to and had success with? I question having surgery without them doing a discogram or other tests first to figure out exactly which nerves are being pinched and from what location. Has anyone heard of this North American Spine that does this procedure called Thoracic Disc Neural Decompression. I spoke with someone there yesterday and faxed my MRI to them and down loaded my disk to them as well. I have 3 herniated discs and one has a tear in it. The pain is off the charts every single day and night, but I don't have to tell anyone on this site about that. That's refreshing! Because I feel like I spend just as much time trying to defend my pain to people who supposedly care about me because they couldn't possibly understand what I'm going through. I'm going through it and still find it hard to comprehend. How can anyone survive this kind of pain day to day, night to night? It takes a strong person to try to figure out how to channel it and just get through each day without going crazy. This has shaken me to the core and changed who I am. I am not the major outgoing person and caring about everyone around me. My mind can only concentrate on surviving all these pain signals being bombed at it 24/7. There's little room for anything else. I am a clean fanatic and still manage to upkeep my home, but what I used to get done in a day, takes me a week and that's thru tears and with pain meds. I sold my large beautiful home with an inground pool and amazing vacation feel landscaping last summer because trying to upkeep that with this back was brutal. I downsized to a townhouse by the beach to take that outside maintenance off my back, literally. It's tough just standing because the pain is so bad, but I'm not a sit around person and that would end up sending me into depression. I can't sit anyway, because that's so painful if I even lean against a chair and laying on my back, is out of the question. And trying to use my arms in anyway, even them moving when i walk is excruciating. I'm only 110 lbs, yet my upper body feels like its 500 lbs. if anyone can send me a doctors info and experience with them, that'd be much appreciated. I am determined to get my health and my life back one way or another. This is not living. It's merely surviving and this is not a way I can continue to live much longer.