[Rockporter]

Hi everyone, I had an appt with the Rheumy Thursday for a bone density test, and a regular appt to see the Nurse Practitoner on the same day. Thankfully they are both in the same office. To get that bone density test I have to lay flat on my back and not move. She also puts a wedge between your legs and turns your feet inward and straps them down. First, I have never in my life been able to lay flat on my back because of the low back pain I have always had. When it is time to get up I can't move. They have to turn my feet back to position and help me get my right leg bent and then my left leg. Then I have to lay there like that for a bit to get the pain to somewhat subside before I can even begin to try turning on my side to get up. I finally got up and bent over to get my things from the table they were on and my mid back went out. I almost fell down the pain was so bad. So, I had to bend and stretch my back while holding the bone density machines table I had just laid on until I could stand up again. I was in a lot of the pain the rest of the day.

After all that I knew I was expecting to get the Xray results for my thoracic spine area I had done back in February. Often my back locks up in that area, it could be getting out of bed, or if say I am walking out of the kitchen and hit the door of the freezer and cause myself to stop kind of short. My mid back will just lock up and it is quite painful. I have bone spurs on my spine near the thoracic area, but not on the actual mid spine that runs down my whole body, it is the part of the spine that runs down the side of the mid spine. I forgot what the NP told me it was called, and I have never heard of it, and can't find it online to read about it.

Here I thought I had hurt myself in the garden one day. Now I know it wasn't that at all. Therapy might be in order if some at home traction doesn't help to ease the pain. Problem is, they will put me in far more pain doing therapy than I am in now, so I tend to avoid anything like it, lol. I'm just happy to have the answers I have been looking for the last few months. I also understand more about why I have such trouble standing for even short periods of time and walking in numerous stores. So glad I have a husband with empathy, because I don't think I could take another husband who told me I was just a cry baby and hyprochondriac, and "Nothing is wrong with you, it's all in your head". Makes life a whole lot easier for me.

His birthday is next week so he wants to go out for some ribs tonight. I'm all in, lol.