Hi Everyone,

I really need some advice, moral support, and friendship from people who truely understand what I go through and live with everyday.

Six years ago I was hit by a car while I was jogging. My left leg was crushed and I was pretty banged up. THe person left me on the side of the road nice huh. Anyway later on we found out that I had extremely bad nerve damage over the majority of my spine and my left hip. I was 21 when I was hit, and a senior in college. This one moment has completely changed my life. I now have chronic pain which gets worse every year. The pain has gotten so bad I am not working and I am taking alot of medicine. IN six years I gained over a hundred pounds. I went from being very active to barely exercising because it is so painfull. I do not even remember what it feels like to not hurt. I have a husband and a close family but no one really understands how much I hurt...no one who does not have a chronic illness ever could. Eight months ago I got so sick of the way I looked and felt that I went on a diet and started exercising. I have lost 60 pounds but I still have 50 to go. I am beginning to loose my motivation. I have very little support and it is hard to deny myself food rewards when my life is full of pain. IT is also hard to stay commited to exercise when it is so painfull.

Please help me. I really need a friend/friends who knows what I have been through and what I am facing. Please ask me as many questions about myself as you want. I really don,t know what to put here. I am a really nice person. I am a clinical psychologist and a great listner.

I need as much support and advice as I can get and will also give you as much support and advice that I can.

Thanks for reading and good luck on your own journey

Hi Watson,
You inspire me. You are also doing great.
You have been through so much. You are going to do it, because you are strong. The people here are great. They will keep you going.
Blondiegirlme

hi and welcome! congrats on your 60 lb. weight loss. that's fantastic! i do sympathize with your chronic pain too. i hurt my back many years ago in an accident and have spinal cord damage and chronic pain from that-everyday too. i also have ms now, which was diagnosed 2 years ago. because of that, i have a lot of weakness and numbness in my legs and use a cane or walker and at times, a wheelchair. of everything though, my back pain is what is the worst. i certainly sympathize with you for all you have gone through and i'm so sorry that you are in so much constant pain. even with all you have been through, you have lost 60 lbs. so far!! you have a lot to be proud of. i wish you all the best on the rest of your weight loss journey. (i have had to go through a lot of trial and error in trying to figure out what plan would work for me, since i am unable to do the same types of exercising i could do in the past. i am losing now-very slowly, but am I losing, and grateful for it.) please let me know if i can be of any support. take care.

wsw

Hi wsw,

Thank you for your response. I to have had to make a lot of compromises and research about exercise. As you know, the simplest task can be painfull and sometimes impossible. It is hard to live even close to a normal life when my doctor has a 5 page list of all the things I shouldn't do. I tend to ignore her. She is a good Doctor but she has no idea what it is like to be one of her patients. I think all doctors should have to change places with their patients for a week. I gaurantee we would all get better and more compassionate treatment.

Please tell me more about yourself. How much weight do you want to loose and what are you doing? I wish you all the best in dealing with your own injury and illness. I know how isolated our pain and illnesses can make us. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Watson

hi watson

i certainly agree with you that if doctorss had to change places with their patients they may respond a bit differently! actually, i'm pretty lucky with most of my doctors, anyway. i have been doing physical therapy for my back, which at least helps. i have been given a lengthy list of what i can and cannot do both from my neurosurgeon and now from the physical therapist. i do the best i can to follow these, but as you said, real life does intervene at times.

i am following a calorie food plan. i had tried weight watchers and it didn't seem to work for me too well. (yes, i know, i must be the only person on the planet who has not had success with ww!) actually, though, because i can move around so little in comparison to the past, i had to experiment with ww and counting calories, etc. until i could come up with something that works for me. after meeting with a nutritionist per my doctor, i settled on cals. i eat healthy, balanced meals with lots of fruits an veggies, drink plenty of water, etc. i do my physical therapy exercises also. i have lost 35 lbs. and have 60 more lbs. to lose. i had gotten pretty discouraged for a while because i was trying very hard with no results and that had never happened to me in the past. i had a total abdominal hysterectomy last year (not elective) and with going into surgical menopause plus all the medication i'm on for ms, my doctor had said all that plus not being able to exercise as i had previously meant i really would have to change my food plan before i would be able to lose and that turned out to be the case. i am still losing quite slowly, but at least i am losing and feel like i'm on the right track now.

what have you been doing to lose all that weight so far? clearly, it's working! you really are an inspiration. well, take care. hope you have a good evening.

best wishes,
wsw

DEar wsw,

I am sorry I have nit repied to your last post soon, but I have been out of town and not feeling well. Weight Watchers didn't work for me either. I did not find it to be very supportive and I have found that putting in the time to learn about nutrition and putting it to work for me is best. PLus I don't have to pay a monthly fee. However, I would love a friend in my area who could physically support me and be going though a diet also, but all my real life friends wear a size 1 to 8. My husband is no help because he thinks veggies are poison. He lives on meat, cheese, and junk food. He drinks 6 sodas a day and I am the one on a diet. LIfes funny.

I just rty to the best I can everyday. Some days I am good and somedays I give in to cheesecake. I think this works okay for me. I am living a much healthier life and I can never stick to a very restrictive diet long term.

Would you mind telling me a little about your personal life, how you live, what your struggles are...IF you don't want to post it here you can private message me.

Take care.......WATSON

Hi Watson

I'm sorry you weren't feeling well recently. I hope you're feeling much better now.

I too do not do well on restrictive sorts of diets, so I find that eating healthy, well-balanced meals and counting calories works best for me. I like fresh fruits and vegetables, so that part is not not hard for me to maintain as a regular portion of my food plan. Sometimes, though, I find it frustrating that I have to watch what I eat so carefully or I will not be able to lose, but for the most part, I'm hanging in there pretty well.

I hope your afternoon is going well. Take care.

wsw

Dear wsw,

This has been the worst month. My GRandfather has been in the hospital, so I have been in the boonies helping take care of him. I am also bedridden at the moment because of the long hours I spent traveling and in the hospital. I am doing basically the same things yo are diet wise. However, I have to eat pretty much whatever my husband brings me as I cant cook at the moment.....so my diet is out the window at the moment. I eliminated fried foods, white foods, and red meat. I eat a ton of fruits and veggies and lots of lean protien. I don't feel as if I am missing much and if I really want something I eat it occassionally. PLease keep writing to me. IT helps especially now that I am in sooo much pain and bedridden.

TAke care, Watson

Watson- So your hubby only eats protien and junk food?You don't have to. I lost 57 lbs with WW and now I am trying to lose another 15. It is not easy. You know although it is not easy you can cook for yourself what you want to eat and for your hubby what he wants. I have done it for the past 4 yrs. Get some blinders!! Have a little bit of tunnel vision where his food is concerned. You can do this. Sometimes our hubby's will try to sabotoge our diets. Maybe for different reasons he wants the company of being overweight. If you can't get around to cook for yourself cut in half what he serves you.You have to take care of yourself. Don't give yourself excuses.
I have osteoarthritis. There are not many days that I do not have pain. The Dr's told me the only thing left was surgery for my back. I think that was a wakeup for me. I said no way. I joined WW for the upteenth time. It worked for me. I made Lifetime. It has not helped all that much lately,but, I have not gained more than a couple lbs over goal and am still able to get it off again. It took me 30 yrs to get down to a reasonable weight. I hope you can too.
I hope you are well and feeling better soon...Joanne

Welcome to our little nest here. I was 29 when I first started having back problems. I did undergo back surgery when I was 37. For a few years, I did ok, not pain free, but certainly less pain. 7 years ago, it all came back with a vengence. I have developed Osteoarthritis in the facet joints of my lower back (these are the joints that are responsible for movement). At one point my back was completely locked. I had no range of motion at all. During the past 3 years, I have also been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I sure do understand chronic pain, and how it affects every aspect of our lives. I am very lucky to have a wonderful Dr.

I tried ww, starting Jan. of this past year and up to June I had lost only 9 pounds. Frustrating, because I was sticking to it. I then decided to give Atkins a try, and started that the first part of October. 19 pounds gone up until Christmas (I am sure a couple returned over the holidays, but I don't know for sure, as I have had to have a cast on my left foot, since the 21 Dec - fractured bone in the foot). My pants still feel nice and loose, so it must not be too serious Due to FMS, I was seeming to be getting that exhaustive fatigue - just so tired I couldn't get up. Since going on Atkins, that has been eliminated (I think it is an insulin related problem). Also, IBS has become a thing of the past. I am feeling wonderful on this diet. I have given up bread (which I loved) pasta, starchy veggies. I now live on meat, veggies, berries, cream, cheese etc.

If you ladies want to join us in the Dieting with Fibromyalgia forum, please feel free. Lots don't have FM, but they have Chronic Pain, so we all understand and support each other.

hi watson

i'm sorry to hear you've had such a lousy month! it must be so miserable being bedridden and in so much pain now. believe me, i hope you will be up and about soon! i also hope your grandfather is doing better or at least will be, soon. i am thinking a good thought and sending it your way. apparantly, i hadn't checked this board before sending you that email last night or i would have acknowledged what you wrote here. we must have been on the same wave length though. i really do hope you are feeling at least a bit better this afternoon. please take good care of yourself!

Wow, a place where everyone knows what it feels like!! Thank you so much for posting this thread!!

My name is Michelle, and as you all can tell, I am new to 3FC. I am the SAHM to my very active 2 year old girl (who is a tomboy at this young age). When I saw this thread, I almost started to cry, because it is a rare day that someone understands the level of pain that I deal with on a daily basis. It is also rare that people understand why you don't, or rarely exercise.

Here is my story:

For ten years I worked as a retail manager and was on my feet for 8-10 hours a day. About 5 years into my career, I "threw my back out". I know you can all relate. Then about every six months or so after that point, my back would just go out. My doc would give me a couple of days worth of Vicodin, PT and tell me to get up and on my feet as quickly as I could. "Don't stay in bed, get up and start walking." So I would follow his orders, get out of bed within a couple of days, do the PT thing for a week or two (all the HMO would pay for), and get back to work at about 35-40% of "normal." He told me it was a muscle strain and to basically just suck it up until I felt better.

Fast forward to April 2001. My baby is six months old. I can't move because my back has gone out again. My husband is a firefighter/paramedic, so he works 48 on 48 off, and he is at work and can't get off (since he's a rookie). I am forced at this stage to put my daughter in her high chair and leave her there, because I can't lift her from the ground, and she's to small to leave on the couch. I feel like the WORST mother in the world leaving her in her high chair, but there is NOTHING I can do and no one to help. When dh gets home he takes me to doc's office. And, as usual, he says it is nothing more than a muscle strain. I demand an MRI and he gets approval. The MRI shows I have a completely ruptured disc (at L4-5), and the nucleus pulposa (the goo inside the disc) has extruded out and is traveling down my spinal column. After having a friend (who is a radiologist) read the films, he said that for years (probably since first injury), my disc was bulging, and the pregnancy caused it to burst, but the goo didn't start causing the problems until that fateful April day. Needless to say, I canned my doc shortly thereafter.

And here we are now today. The disc is empty, and is now full of scar tissue. The "goo" that had traveled down my spinal column, finally dehydrated, but broke off in several pieces and is now "free-flowing" in my spinal canal. So, some days are ok, but others I can't move and have no feeling in my foot and leg. I've met with several leading orthopedic surgeons and a neurologist, and they have all said that I would still have some pain after surgery because they probably wouldn't be able to get all of the nucleus pulposis pieces out of my spinal column. So, now I live in chronic pain, can't walk around the block without being bedridden for a week, don't do PT because the pain gets worse, and am now about 100 lbs overweight. I do ride a stationary/recumbent bike 3-4 times a week, take Ultram (Vicodin makes me sick to my stomach), and will be starting the Lean for Life weight loss program this week when I get my stuff from Lindora (WW didn't work for me as well).

I look forward to going on this journey with all of you. It is nice to be surrounded by people who understand.

Take care all!
Shel

Hi there Michelle. I can sure relate to having little ones and an unco-operative back. If you don't own a back brace, go get one. That is a life saver for me on some days. Just putting it on for 3 hours and it really helps the muscle. My other life save is the Upper Cervial Chiropracter. He is wonderful and my back is so much better than it was 6 years ago, when it was locked in the same place. Arthritis has set into the Facet Joints, from the surgery. Surgery certainly isn't a cure, but it did help for a few years.

If you want to read about the Upper Cervical Chiropracter go to
www.nuuca.org It is a treatment unlike anything a regular chiro does. It is done by precise measurement.

Oh, I should say Welcome to 3FatChicks. Nice to have onboard.

Hi All, I am totally new to this diet forum and am trying to lose the weight I gained since my back operation a few yrs ago. I will make this short but coud tell by reading first few messages that I need to be part of this thread because I have chronic back pain that challenges me everyday that I struggle with while trying to lose weight , etc. I look forward to hearing from you all.
I will be back soon after I finish reading the rest of the posts on this thread and a few others.....April

I have a suggestion for chronic pain...a feldenkrais practitioner! my mom had back/arm pain for years, with no results from physical therapy (well, some results, but the pain was always there). She got a visit with a therapist who did feldenkrais, and after 2 visits, she was pain free. I'm not saying it will work for everyone, but it could help you.

The adjustments were very gentle. My mom was told to lie on a padded table and the therapist held her head gently and then moved her arms and legs gently. Doing this allowed the body to untwist itself and adjust itself. I'm sure it's more complex than that, but it was amazing to watch.

www.feldenkrais.com