The pile of bark is about 1/3 smaller. It could have been even smaller, but we were doing some fine-tuned “barking” around roses and rhodies.
(My hip is not having as much fun with this yardwork as I am, unfortunately, so I poured a glass of wine on it. 
)
I hope you internally saturated that hip, not externally, BB, studies show… ;).
Quite a trail notrichenough, looks like an incredible experience.
Deb922, one of the most cited reasons women give for not lifting weights is a concern about “bulking up”. For the typical woman, that will not occur both because of normal gender based hormonal balances and physiological responses to weight lifting and because of the very specialized types of routines required to achieve that kind of result. It’s great that your daughter does lift. The benefits to her are many including metabolic, bone strength, body composition, functional strength.
BB, I’ll bet your yard is beautiful! Bark and all! My yard needs a little of your TLC!!
Lol, abasket! The yard (the entire horse acre of it) needed a bit of serious TLC after two years of touch-up care only while the owners were too busy with homework. Hence the endless piles of bark.
An interesting article on diet foods:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-death-of-the-diet-industry-2016-7
Eating for health vs eating to simply drop pounds.
I had a nice time at a family reunion this weekend. It was great to see all the extended family but also my kids, who I haven’t seen in months. I’m having a hard time with being so far away from them. So I just keep running. We were at a really nice state park that had great trails and I got a really good 7.5 mile run in on Saturday through some beautiful trails. I organized a scavenger hunt (mainly a photo/video scavenger hunt) on Saturday afternoon that went over really well. Everyone had a lot of fun - it was great having everybody of all ages outside enjoying the park and being active. You never know how these things will go.
But I ate a lot over the weekend and I have the munchies today. I need to get back to my regular routine and mindset about food.
notrichenough - I love Acadia and that trail looks amazing! Pretty terrifying also, but really cool. Nice job!
BB - wow, you are spreading an incredible quantity of bark! How big is your lot? I’ll bet it looks beautiful!
C3Baker, the lot is not huge, just under an acre (horse acre, as they are called here). The problem is that we have some tall Douglas firs, and that part can get weedy, and then the weeds send their invading armies of seeds all over the yard. So we are doing some preventive striking in that area… We are also ripping out the lawn in the back (well, most of it) and replacing it with landscaping. That part needs mulch, too.
Slowly getting back onto the health/diet/exercise/wellness bandwagon. The current impediment is sciatic pain that the experts disagree about - the orthopedist ordered an MRI and says “probably” a herniated disc and is selling surgery (which I will say right away I am not going to do - the pain is interfering with some things but not worth risking back surgery at this point) and the PT says “almost certainly” the problem is the piriformis muscle pressing on the sciatic nerve. I’ve been doing PT for three weeks and it might (but might not) be helping.
I recall that some of you have dealt with similar issues before, so I am hoping to get some advice. I had a herniated disc about 10 years ago and the present pain is different enough to make me doubt the orthopedist’s conclusion that this is a herniated disc. For example, a round of steroids then had a dramatic effect; now, steroids did nothing (that was really disappointing). Also, then standing was better; now, standing usually makes the pain worse.
But what perplexes me about the PT’s diagnosis of a piriformis injury is that the pain comes and goes – the overall intensity has diminished since March, but there are times when it is still pretty intense. Does a muscle injury take four-plus months to resolve? Physical therapy mostly consists of stretching exercises which the PT says should “open up some space” and relieve the pressure on the nerve. I can’t really tell if the exercises are helping – if they are, it’s not in an immediate, direct way (I never feel better right after doing the exercises).
So, I have six more PT sessions (the orthopedist skeptically prescribed 12). Should I just see how things are after? Anything else I could be doing? In addition to doing the stretching exercises twice a day, I have been walking several miles most nights, which helps, although only temporarily.
No real advice from me @Amesie, but plenty of sympathy for you - sounds painful! Kudos to you for trying to keep up some form of exercising - walking - even with all the pain!
IME steroid injections can be very hit-or-miss in their effectiveness. Sometimes it is like a magic bullet, sometimes they have no effect. I think a lot depends on the exact nature of the injury - a physical trauma like a herniated disk may not actually involve much inflammation, and steroids may not help in that case. Plus, it can be hard to get the needle in exactly the right spot.
When DW herniated her L4/L5, she couldn’t sit. When I herniated my L4/L5, I couldn’t stand. DW had shooting pains down her leg. I had intense burning sensation in my left gluteus along with the occasional foot tingle. Same injury, but very different ways it expressed itself. So I don’t think you can draw any conclusions based on the fact that the pain is different this time.
I ultimately went for surgery after a year of PT and steroid shots, because it was getting worse and really starting to affect my life. For me it was 95%+ successful, but I’ve heard the horror stories so I understand it is a tough decision to make.
It was very obvious on my MRI what the problem was, I’m kind of surprised they didn’t order one for you right away.
Can’t comment on the piriformis issue, I don’t know anything about that.
Thanks, @abasket. I am trying to stay focused on the positives, mostly that the pain is overall getting better (although pretty slowly and inconsistently).
@notrichenough - I should have specified that the steroids were not injections, but rather taken orally. The previous herniated disc was obvious on the MRI and resolved itself mostly after about 6 - 9 months. My doctor then (who is no longer practicing) explained that often when the disc ruptures, the fluid that bulges out will “dry up like toothpaste” over time.
According to my new orthopedist, the MRI now is inconclusive – he thinks it is probably a herniated disc but it’s not completely apparent on the MRI. I admit that I sort of tuned him out when he started talking about surgery - my previous doctor said he wouldn’t consider surgery unless the pain did not get better on its own, which it did then. I’m glad your surgery was mostly successful. I definitely would consider it if the pain was getting worse. I do think I might need a new orthopedist.
@Amesie - Neither DW or I ever had oral steroids for back pain, our steroid treatments were all cortisone shots using the longest, scariest needle I’ve ever seen.
DW had 6 injections over the course of a year, and PT and was not improving. When I finally got her to see my neurosurgeon (no family discount, unfortunately), he ordered an MRI, and his comment after seeing it was “I don’t understand how you are still walking and not in a wheelchair”, and rearranged his schedule to get her in surgery two days later. It was successful for her.
This was her second herniation - the first, as yours did, resolved itself over about 6 months.
It is interesting that your surgeon wants to operate, and your therapist want you to continue with PT. Hmmm.
Amesie, is it injury or just muscle imbalance? In either case, it could take months to get better. If you see some
improvement, it probably makes sense to finish your PT course and then reevaluate the options. Sorry to hear you are still dealing with it!
I had oral steroids course for back pain once, and it was super successful, but that back pain was clearly localized to the lower back.
Oral steroids are almost never effective for that sort of problem, unfortunately. Xray guided epidural steroid injection would be worth a try. Might take 3 shots a month apart. I would see if you can get approved for that.
I know - makes me wonder how much they are both seeing things through their own preconceptions. They both are very smart but also pretty young. The orthopedist just completed his residency a year ago.
I actually don’t know. The PT was saying that injuries can cause pain months or years later, so I am assuming he is assuming it was an injury – although the only precipitating event was planting some trees in the backyard the week that the pain started. I will ask about the possibility of a muscle imbalance.
The orthopedist mentioned shots, along with PT, as measures he doubted would be very helpful but was willing to try if I wanted. Is the purpose of the injections “simply” to reduce pain or do they somehow address the underlying problem?
The steroid injections (which I wasn’t sold on, but I got convinced…) are able to specifically get to the inflammation and reduce it, thereby eliminating the pain. It was the only thing that worked for me after over a year of dealing with something that sounds like your issue. Mine actually switched sides in my butt/hip!
I think the theory is that by reducing the inflammation and relieving the pain it can accelerate the body’s normal healing ability. Plus it just sucks to be in constant pain, and can lead to other problems, so relieving the pain is desirable on its own. For athletes like MoWC it’s also about getting back in the game, so you hear about them getting cortisone shots all the time.
The problem is that if the underlying cause is structural, like a herniated disk, the relief can be temporary, and as the cortisone wears off, the problem will return.
Interestingly, MRIs have allowed us to discover that a fair number of people have disk bulges or herniations that press on the spinal cord that are completely pain- and symptom-free. They haven’t figured out yet AFAIK why sometimes a herniated disk causes excruciating pain and sometimes you would never even know. Your body may be able to get to that second state, and the spinal injections could help with that.
It’s a bit of a crap shoot, and may be worth a try if PT isn’t giving you relief.
The shots should reduce the inflammation and help the tissues heal faster by breaking down the vicious cycle (if you are in pain, you may not be able to do the PT exercises intended to help reduce the pain…). Also, if a shot helps, then it is the indication that it is the correct spot to focus attention on, because lower back pains may not be even back-related. Some docs use this to determine the source of pain.
I didn’t mean to suggest that pain relief was unimportant – I have a whole medicine cabinet full of things that were supposed to relieve the pain, from narcotics to muscle relaxants (although they did not do anything for the pain, they do put me to sleep, so I am saving them in case I need a sleep aid).
I will discuss the shots with the orthopedist in August. I just realized that I have usually been doing the PT exercises when the pain is worst – I wonder if I should try doing them when the pain is not so bad?
Are you saying that you are not doing the exercises daily? Or are you doing them daily but only when the pain is bad?
Most PTs would prescribe a short circuit of exercises to be performed several times a day. Otherwise, these exercises will be useless.