it has been a week since my last post. and i have good things to report.

i began the physical therapy....trips to the pain clinic aren't as pleasant as people made it sound like they were going to be. my 2 trips so far have been very painful, mainly due to heavy inflammation. but that will change.....i'll explain why in a bit.



i got my first epidural steroid shot friday. unlike what they were telling me, it had an immediate effect, that teetered off as time progressed. 3 days later, all noticable effects were gone. i'm not sure if all steroids increase the amount of testosterone being released...and it might just all be psychological, but some of my muscles seem bigger. for example my triceps. since i haven't been using my muscles at all, i've lost a lot, but today, when i feel them, they are almost as big as they were when i first got injured, minus the tone.....then again i might just be imagining it. i'd say the overall experience with the steroid injection was positive, but it really didn't do much. they require at least 3 shots. i will get my 2nd shot in a week and a half. and they say the first shot doesn't really do much, but the second shot should really make a difference. we'll have to wait and see.



my BackPro CPM (continuous passive motion) machine came today. i was bit skeptical, but considering i am willing to try anything at this point, i thought it couldn't hurt. $50 a month is nothing compared to the $600 a mont i was spending on acupuncture and $250 a month for the chiropractor. acupuncture seems to help but very slowly...and it is expensive. not to mention being stuck with needles all over. do they hurt? heck ya they do. you just get used to it. the chiropractor....i really can't say it has noticeably helped. getting adjusted might straighten me out, but the car ride will mess it back up. maybe when i have dealt with all the inflammation, and gotten reasonably straighter i can go back. but i don't have any future appointments scheduled for right now.



anyway, back to the BackPro CPM machine. well, I got on it, and it was painful and rather soothing at the same time while on the machine as it compressed and elongated my spine. but as the minutes passed, the pain i felt when i was on the machine went away. and i noticed that i definitely felt a positive change. then a while later, i noticed a remarkable difference. basically all the inflammation was gone. i would say this machine is pretty incredible. it has achieved more in a few hours than a shot of steroids was supposed to do. more than i had ever accomplished with acupuncture, and all the medication i have taken. why don't more professionals know about this machine? i've been on the machine twice so far (15 minutes at a time) and can't wait to use it on the days to come. i also noticed another amazing result. i can almost sit with no pain now....amazing considering i couldn't sit comfortably for more than a second or two for the last 3 months.



so i'm going to guess that my next physical therapy visit will be more productive considering the inflammation is no longer going to get in the way. in physical therapy, they explained that if the pain increases in the hips, and decreases in the calf, that means that the disc is pussing less on the nerves. i've been assuming it the other way around because when there is a lot of pain in my hips, i can't move at all, so i've been trying to reverse what caused the pain in my hips and not concerning myself with the increasing pain in my calf. this meant that i was basically making it impossible for the disc to make it back because i just push it back out further when it tries to creep back to its normal healthy position. so i've adjusted my resting positions so this won't happen. another thing i learned in physical therapy is that my pelvis was pushed in one direction, and that was the cause of all the pain. once i force it back, basically all the pain is gone. but for right now, if i release the pressure, i get hit with a crippling pain...where i just want to collapse because it is too overwhelming. so i'm trying to put my pelvis in the correct position, and my goal for right now is to push it slow enough to where i wn't get dealt that crippling pain as i release. i think it eventually should hold that normal position as my body lets go and i keep trying to psh it back.



i've been downloading movies in the theateres...that's my new thing.



hulk

finding nemo

bruce almighty

matrix

2fast 2 furious

kangaroo jack



i say the worst movie in there was 2fast 2 furious. absolute crap. the camera shots make the car looking like they are going about 300 miles, and they keep going back to the spedometer, and they aren't even doing 100. i'm thinking like, damn, with all that fancy gear changes and facial expressions, if they are doing the speed that they were showing you, even my honda would have smoked them. only time they do go above 160 is when paul walker jumps the bridge using is nos....ummm....all i have to say about that is "YEAH RIGHT!". Let's see, jump a ramp at 160+mph and expect to live? that is pure suicide. well, paul walker in his skyline is the only one that lands without a scratch, while 2 other cars land and do damage to the cars. yeah, like anyone really does this in real life. not even close. total bullshit. add all this to the worst acting i've seen (worse than keanu reeves way back when). also the script is total crap. like they keep repeating how paul always gets in trouble because of the girls. that never develops, and they repeat this about 10 times. the script is absolute garbage. it could have been randomly generated by a computer.



kangaroo jack on the other hand was surprisingly entertaining. the kangaroo doesn't really talk. that was the guy having a dream. the trailer made it seem like he talked during the movie. i also got the watch the hulk 2 weeks in advance (vhs quality vcd). my comments are, better than daredevil. more darker film than spiderman, but a better film overall.