Getting Back To It

[Steuss]

Cliff Notes: 43 years old. Trying to lose weight, maintain mobility, and mitigate pain. Wouldn’t mind getting back to looking like I could fight a cocaine bear… or maybe even just a caffeinated wombat.


A little over two years ago, I had my first back surgery (discectomy and laminectomy at L4/5). Probably around a year prior, I started having debilitating pain that radiated through my booty-butt-cheek, and down my leg. Eventual MRI revealed a disc that had completely ruptured, and spilled out its fun all the way down to the disc below. I was able to walk for the most part, but had lost most of the feeling in my left thigh, and couldn’t raise my toes on my left foot. Since surgery, I’ve gotten back a lot of feeling and movement, but still use a cane.

Nerve pain is pretty wild. Leading up to surgery, there was one night where even liquid morphine didn’t touch the pain. If it weren’t for hippy gummies, I likely would’ve lost my mind.

The surgery was very successful, and to this day the disc that was operated on is the best looking one in imaging (sans desiccation). My back problems are a combination of abuse, and genetics. Degenerative discs, and stenosis are largely genetic, and exacerbated by abuse. There’s the added fun of lots of calcification (per the surgeon, when he was in there tinkering around) likely from lifting.

Fusion is inevitable, but hoping to put it off for as long as possible. Once the first disc is fused where there’s the most damage and trauma right now (L5-S1), it then starts a kind of clock where the adjoining vertebrae will eventually need to be fused, culminating in a fully fused spine over a few decades.

Next post (will likely be posting this in segments)… October 2022: Waking up paralyzed.

 

[MrBiggles]

Apologies up front if I ramble here or impose my situation on the thread, this is the first and only time i'll mention it. I'm in a similar boat, I've had those sleepless nights with pain that just continues unabated until you have to take the likes of zopiclone. (It was zopi that stopped me taking the opioids after being scared of how effect it was).

L3->S1 (none completely ruptured) at 21 (36 now) with multiple 3 week stays in residential rehab with surgeons, doctors, physios, nurses and 0800-1700 therapy. Thousands spent over the years since then. I would hit the gym 6x a week but on the way out the door I'd re-arrange the cushions or throw over the sofa to appease the wife and I'd put my back out, spasm and seizure up the spine that diazepam wouldn't ease for days. X-rays now make my spine look like sharks teeth as they try to fuse themselves.

Divorce has kicked me into replacing the gym for the pub and with the muscle loss and fat gain, the pressure that puts on the lower back just amplifies the issues. I've got my stacks lined up, I've come back from this before and hit roadblocks all of my own doing. Pace yourself and think differently and carefully, for example, I started deadlifting in a trap so I didn't have such a lean angle, BUT I got too carried away with my progress, whilst muscles can carry the weight, I've found that the tolerance for catastrophic failure is so much more acute (see the adjusting a throw that f--ks me up - or tying a shoelace) - the 5th 140KG deadlift when you're feeling on top of the world could be easy, the 6th one sends you to the floor and you aren't standing straight or putting your socks on for 3 weeks. Don't ask about wiping your arse.

I've come out the back of the horrible divorce, almost sorted in the courts now. Complete backwards body recomp.

I've got my SR9009, EPISTANE, LGD, emoxypine, salidroside, 5-HTP and all the ZMA and biotin, taurine and creatine in the world stacked up. All stuff I know can help me. I'm doing 5miles a day minimum, dropping the weight with the dog across the mountain tops and am ready to start the SR and LGD after 3 more weeks in the gym. I should probably do S4 or Ostarine in place of LGD for 2 months first to drop the weight.

What are you thinking with regards to supplements or gear? At what stage?
Light free weights at high reps? My heavier free weights are all supported, i.e. flat barbell bench rows but lighter bent over rows. One horizontal, one vertical exercise on a muscle group. I'm very interested to know how you're going to go about it.

 

[Steuss]

Apologies up front if I ramble here or impose my situation on the thread, this is the first and only time i'll mention it.

Talk about it as much as you like my dude. My threads are always open to people to share their experiences, and ramble about whatever they would like.

What are you thinking with regards to supplements or gear? At what stage?
Light free weights at high reps?

I'm on TRT. Won't be doing/using any gear. Partially for the legality, but mostly because with strength increases, I have a tendency to go overboard which is why I'm in the position I am currently in. Along with the back madness I currently have going on, I've got a torn pec that never healed right, and I've torn my right bicep twice, and left once. Also have some gnarly arthritis in my knees, ITB issue that's never healed, and shoulder impingement syndrome. All exercises will be higher reps. Free weights preferably over machines, but obviously machines when it comes to legs.

One thing that'll be a focus, but also might be a little hard to figure out will be core/abs. Simply because it's something I've never worked on, or done exercises for. In the past, my abs got all the workout they needed from deadlifts, cleans, squats, etc.

Supplements plan:

* Resveratrol. This is part of the Hail Mary, and is ultimately stupid for me thinking it'll work at all. There's a single animal study (rabbits) out there that showed resveratrol had anabolic effects on disc degeneration. Downside (beyond animal only study), it was done via injection (Resveratrol/DSMO) directly into the disc.

* IGF-1 LR3. Never used it before, but this is my most hopeful component in this. Quite a few studies using growth factors (one in humans) for disc degeneration, stenosis, etc. Downside is they were usually a much more involved cocktails of factors, and usually site injected. Nonetheless, this seems like it'll be my best hope for losing some weight, building stabilizing muscles, and slowing the degeneration.

* Glucosamine, Chondroitin, MSM. Research is overall shoddy, but theoretically it could help.

* Collagen. Hopefully type II, but this will be one of the things that might be budget dependent. Research seems to be fairly solid on this possibly helping.

The first order of business will be walking. As of now, I can maybe walk 100 yards before it's pretty painful. I want to be able to walk at least a mile, without stopping.

Current weight is 285. I think 250 is an attainable goal, but 230 would be pie-in-the-sky dream goal.

Might add in some other peptides as I learn/research. I never messed with peptides before, and looking at some of these different healing things makes me realize just how little I know.

 

[Steuss]

Next post (will likely be posting this in segments)… October 2022: Waking up paralyzed.

Around 3am, I heard the call of the bladder gods. My legs, however, ignored the call.

I couldn’t move them. At all. After about 30-minutes, I was able to get on my side, then get my legs off the edge of the bed and sit. Eventually, I was able to stand up, and hit the bathroom. I could only lift my legs about 2 inches off the ground.

Later that morning, my wife helped me get dressed, I went to an Urgent Care. They hooked me up with a Toradol shot, and a script for prednisone. I shuffled my way through the remainder of the day, working from home.

Towards evening, I had moved from my recliner over to the computer desk to edit some schoolwork for my wife (western ethics research paper… *snore*). When I went to stand up… I couldn’t. I wheeled myself to a counter, and was able to eventually get myself pulled up. I shuffled around for a while, and then -- bam. Down I went to the floor, and I wasn’t able to get back up after that.

An old lifting bud came over, and hefted me into my recliner to spend the night. I was panicked as hell, and wanted to go to the hospital, but my wife convinced me to wait until at least morning before we incurred the thousands in an ER visit. By the time morning rolled around, I was able to stand and walk again. It took about 4-5 days before I was mostly back to “normal.”

Since then, I haven’t had an instance of having my legs fully paralyzed like that again, but I've definitely been close. I have had a crap-ton of falls (too many to count), and a couple of times where my legs haven’t been able to support me. One time I slipped on dog piss, and it took me a good 15 minutes to be able to get my legs under me to stand up again; worst pee party ever. So far, an MRI, lots of pain management appointments, some epidurals, facet injections and NCV tests. All show a hodgepodge of madness, but nothing that perfectly explains the random paralysis. Going theory is there’s a rascally disc that herniates and then sneaks back in gradually. Wrench in the theory is the symptoms would require two separate herniations at different levels occurring simultaneously.

So… here I am, trying to delay spinal fusion for as long as possible, and maintain (and possibly regain) mobility.

I still haven't set foot in the gym. Not sure what's ultimately holding me back from at least going for a short treadmill walk.