I’m Totally Lame

We need large animal vets for humans.  If we had vets for humans, here’s how it would go:

You hurt somewhere and you’re noticeably limping, so you call the vet and they either answer the phone or give you a quick call back and you describe how much it hurts and where and any other symptoms that are going on (heart rate, respiration). After a quick assessment they either tell you to take a gram of Bute, or not,  and you wait about a day, at most,  for them to COME TO YOUR PLACE to check you out.   Or if you want to be seen sooner, the vet will have you load yourself in a car and drive over.  They might even open up their doors of their clinic in the middle of the night if the Bute isn’t helping.

With zero time wasted in a waiting room, the vet is soon in front of you and they’ll give you a once over, have you trot around a bit and then flex you.  If a sketchy area comes up in flexions, they’ll x-ray within moments and then call back in a couple hours with their diagnosis and treatment.

I realize after spending most of my life with horses that pain and lameness is usually not resolved easily, but it’s nice to work hand in hand with a vet, or a team of specialists, to manage care and pain levels. Vets are available, their knowledge is broad even if they’re specialists and they have no trouble putting their ego aside to find the answers, if a problem eludes them.  Even if I cry and whine whenever my vet gives me a bill for services, we really couldn’t pay large animal veterinarians enough:  being on call 24 hours with patients that could kick them at any moment.

So I had this vague, constant nerve pain shooting down my left leg for eight months and I decided to finally have it looked at.  I used Google to self-diagnose the pain as sciatic and it was no great news to me that my lower back/sacrum is messed up from years of perching with an exaggerated equitation back and picking up feed bags – not always at the same time. 

It would take two weeks for my general doctor to see me so I decided to wait four days to see his PA instead.  The PA had me lie on my back and lift my left knee up and down and said I should consider having x-rays taken but I would have to set up a separate appointment.  She offered pain killers – I said I’d stick with Advil.  If the pain didn’t go away in a month or so, she suggested I try something for nerve-specific pain.  I said I’d think about it.  The most she could do was set up an appointment with a physical therapist.  I chose the first one on her list and waited for the PT office to call me back.  They did not.  I called the PA’s office and asked if the referral went through.  It had not.

Two weeks later I had my very first appointment with a PT.  I’m pretty sure they scammed my insurance because even though I was told my insurance would not cover the visit, they charged me $125 for 45 minutes and billed my insurance anyway for $250 a visit and something went through.  What?  I’m not quite certain because the insurance statements were confusing.

The PT massaged my lower back and spent some time talking about books, foreign films, and a very interesting person he thought I should meet to write their story (he liked me being a writer).  It could be the facet joint, something going on between L4 and L5.

Let me take a moment to add that until I saw the PT, my lower back was not in constant pain.  Maybe a twinge here and there, but nothing I was consistently conscious of.  This was all about to change.

Our 45 minutes taken up with small talk and a massage, he told me to come back in four days.

Four days later he asked if I had been doing the exercises and stretches he suggested.  I explained that he’d given me no homework.  So then he spent our visit telling me about exercise balls and sizes of them and that I might get one at Target and then he glanced at his watch and said he’d massage my lower back for a bit because we had some time to waste until my appointment was over.

I did my stretches and went back in a week.  The nerve pain was still constant.  The PT said he’d given my case some thought and he believed the pain should only be in my back, not in the left leg and that it was actually stemming from my right, not the left side.  He then talked about WWII and Turkey vs. Greece for 45 minutes while he massaged my lower back.  Whenever he hit a point on the left that I said was connected to the leg pain, he ignored it and went back to the right side.

My last visit, a week later, I was planning on firing him anyway.  He started the visit by saying he really didn’t think he could help me anymore and that we’d spend the time with some specific work on the facet joint between L4 and L5.  The break up was easy, except when I tried to get off the table after he’d spent 45 minutes working on the joint with a little porcelain prodding tool, I really couldn’t move my back.  Walking was hard.

My back has now hurt for two months, constantly.  It’s overshadowed the nerve pain in my leg to the point I really don’t feel it anymore.  Thank you for curing the nerve pain, Mr. PT?  I guess?

It was at this point that I decided to approach my dilemma like I would a lame horse.  I found an amazing massage therapist – John Bowman (anyone looking for a massage therapist get in touch with me for his number, he works out of Solar Tan on Haywood Rd. in Greenville) – whom I started seeing every other week.  I waited a month for an appointment with Key Acupuncture on Washington St. in Greenville.  In lieu of a human Adequan shot I researched the best feed-through supplements I could find for inflammation and started taking Turmeric/Curcumin daily (I love curry!).  Acupuncture surpassed my expectations – I could FEEL everything interconnecting, though it was a bit off-putting at first.

I am now able to drive and sit for more than twenty minutes at a time without constant, zooting pain through my left leg.  The back pain is still there with a vengeance, but it was fifty percent better a few days after acupuncture and a massage.

Having watched my uncle’s journey with chronic back pain – years of treatments and surgeries, and hearing the stories of so many people who come down the barn drive (including our resident Rachel who opted for surgery when she was I college and has never regretted it), I’m happy  exploring alternative modalities for the time being.  I’m always explaining to people that the newest, greatest supplements for humans usually get their start in the barn yard and while I’m not walking away from traditional medicine (I am thankful beyond reason for being born after the invention of antibiotics) the horses have taught me that the best approach might be a marriage of both traditional and alternative therapies.

I’m still in the market for a PT – please tell me whom you recommend.  And share you experience with chronic back pain in particular.  What worked for you?  What didn’t?

The horses can’t tell us what’s wrong, or where – so here’s a toast to all the amazing vets out there who intuitively diagnose their silent patients every single day (at risk of being kicked).  My horses and I thank you! Will you start making farm calls for humans?