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INPUT + 5 days

Ever since coming back from INPUT, I’ve been in agony with increased pain from my back.  It did get quite hectic in the last few days of the course, and at first I thought that the travelling back from INPUT had caused me to jar my back. (I did have my “holdall-on-wheels with everything but the kitchen sink in it” with me on the way back, but apart from the short steps at the entrance to Waterloo station, I didn’t carry it at all).

I’ve still been doing my stretch exercises daily, but laid off the circuits.  I was already on a ‘set-back plan’ and due to the increase in regular activity since I’ve been home, I didn’t really need the extra exercise.  (I will however be starting them again today, but I’m still on my recovery plan and hoping to hit full circuits by the end of the week).

I got to bed around 10.30pm last night after the boys had come back from Cadets, read my book for 30mins (relaxation 😉 ) and then attempted to get to sleep. My back was quite painful, so in the end rather than tossing and turning I did “the right thing”, got up, relaxed and went back to bed again finally getting to sleep around 1am.

The alarm woke me up at 2.30am for my next dose of OxyNorm but I drifted off back to sleep fairly quickly.  I then work up at 4am with my back in complete spasm and my left leg numb from the toes upwards.  I must have gone back to sleep at a funny angle and put pressure on the lumbar area. (Usually I can only sleep on my right side).

When the alarm went at 6.30am, my back was throbbing something rotten. I haven’t overdone any activity since I returned from INPUT, and I’m not exceeding my baselines during my stretch exercise, so it must be a case of just waiting for my back to settle down after the activities of last week.  I have though achieved more in the past week, than I have done over the last 6months, but I’m pretty sure that physically I haven’t done anything to cause my back to flare up like this.

Again, it is early days.  Attending INPUT does not give you an instant cure.  I’ve already had one or two people ask me “Does this mean you’re cured now?”.
(I’m beginning to think I’m a bacon/gammon joint).
INPUT is not a cure for chronic pain. INPUT merely provides you with a set of tools with which to manage the pain and hopefully give you back some quality of life that was missing before.  It can take anything from 3-18months for any benefit of the course to be felt.
I just wish I knew what I was doing at the moment to aggrivate my back.  It might be just the weather,  but that doesn’t usually cause the level of pain and discomfort I’m in now.

Rest isn’t an option either since having missed the last 4 weeks up by being up in London, I’m now busy trying to play catch up with all the Christmas preparations.

So far, physically INPUT hasn’t done anything.
Mentally, I feel the best I have done since the operation in January.  That in itself was worth doing the course. Let’s just hope that this continues until the New Year.

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