Newbies: Our back blog address and a topic too, Full Spectum Lights ease depression.

[Nihola and Bernard]

Hello everyone, Bernard and I are new here. Very helpful to hear from other people dealing with complicated back issues. We've felt pretty isolated, as few people can really understand the difficulties we face. We started a blog last year, which has help me alot, to be able to write about it and also to relay new information to our readers. I'll add a link to ispine on our blog. Here's the link to Bernard’s New Back.

B's back was injured in his late teens, and he just turned 41 this year. The past 4 years have been downhill, and for the past two he's been pretty much bed ridden. We've yet to find a specialist who wants to get to the bottom of it, although we're in the process of writing letters to some Vancouver specialists. We now have a pretty decent family physican, who's helped us with the paperwork for getting on the disability assistance we have here in canada and for applying for other programs, as well as meds. Our life has changed completely. Instead of living independently and running a company, we now own nothing and live with my parents. We've had terrible experiences with specialists, with the majority of them here in this country having outdated information that they want to hold onto as long as possible. He hasn't been taken seriously by any of them, and if one more rich boy specialist flipantly minimizes the problems, their going to have trouble with one furious girl! Most of the problems are at one level, as far as we can tell, and increase astronomically with movement. Osteoporosis is also a factor. Sitting is impossible, walking for only a few moments, and the consequences of movement progress over multiple hours. Anyway, were still hopeful, although very scared. I have optimism that this year we'll find an intelligent caring specialist who wants to figure out what's going on. We can't proceed until a fuller diagnosis is made. MRI, CT and x-ray have been done, but don't give the whole picture. Most doctors just don't want to touch it.

One thing we tried this winter was a Full Spectrum Light. Depression is always a possibility with chronic severe pain and such an uncertain future, so I thought we should to try to head off an increase in winter blues from lack of sunlight, which can aggravate the situation. Research online helped, but I ended up finding one at the local pharmacy. 10,000lux is the usual dose, using a weaker lamp is not condusive because of how the intensity of light drops off. B puts it on every day when he wakes up and uses it for a few hours in bed. Even 15 mins can benefit some people. He feels like it helps, and the light, once you get used to it, feels very cheerful, like the feeling of lying on a beach on a really sunny day. Lack of sunlight, a very common thing throughout North America and Europe during the winter months, can have a profound effect on our mental health, increasing feelings of depression. Many people with back problems have reduced activity which often probably leads to even less time spent with the sunshine reaching our eyes. So, something to check out. Wikipedia has good articles on SAD and Full Spectrum Lighting. We've written a post on our blog as well. Hope that's helpful for some of you.