How The Dog Park Changed My Life

If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, then you know, that I have been suffering from pain in my back.  In 2006 I was in a bad car accident here in Buenos Aires.  I fractured my hip and damaged my knee.  I thought that I had recovered from that accident.   I am not a hypochondriac and I don't like being told no.  I pushed myself beyond what my doctors thought I could do.

I knew my body was not the same, but I pushed myself harder.  I was not going to give up.  For years after I had a nagging pain in my back.  My doctor blew it off.  It was the humidity of Buenos Aires.  It was the aftermath of the accident.  The same for my knee.  The pains got worse.

If you knew me during this time, I was a mess.  I was not me.  I was exhausted all the time.  Me, the person who could go on 4 hours of sleep.  The pain became insufferable.  I think in the last year and a half I saw probably 8 orthopedists, 2 neurosurgeons, and 2 rheumatologists.  I went to physical therapists, accupuncture, and massage therapists.  Everyone had their opinion on what was wrong with me.

The orthopedists and the neurosurgeons all wanted to carve me up for something I did not have.  Thank God for Dr. Brain my neurologist.  He read my MRIs and told me I didn't need surgery.  They were all convincing in their stupid doctor ways.  You have to wonder, were they stupid?  Or did they just want to make money?

The Internet can be a fabulous tool.  When the first doctor told me I had lumbar stenosis I went to the Internet to research it.  Hello.  I did not have one symptom.  I could write a book on the little devices they wanted to install in my back - X-Stop, Cofler, Pixus.  The funny thing was I knew more about them, than the silly doctors who wanted to shred my back and install them.

The rheumatologists?  The one with his fancy degrees sent me to GPR. (Global Postural Re-eduacation) He blew me off on to the son of his colleague.  A young man who eventually told me that there was nothing wrong with me.  The drugs he prescribed didn't help.  He told me to do sit-ups.  When I told him that sometimes the pain was so bad I wanted to die, he rolled his eyes.

The famous neurosurgeon who was dazzled by her own credentials began to grow fangs when she told me what she wanted to do my back.  It was horrifying. "You are so young." she clucked. "What a shame." The one positive thing she did was send me to a pain clinic.

They believed me when I told them I did not have stenosis.  You can't walk 30 blocks and have stenosis. They decided to take more xrays. The xrays none of the others wanted to take. Because the CAT scan showed no stenois and what it did show was that one vertebrae had moved over the other.  Very common in athletes and dancers, they told me.  That was why I had pain.  That and I had arthritis.  I had heard that before.  Except none of the drugs for arthritis helped.

About a month ago they gave me a fancy guided block.  It was supposed to make all the pain go away.  It didn't.  I still felt like a truck had driven over me every morning.  I was exhausted.  I figured it was from the chronic pain.  They told me to go swimming.  I hate swimming.

One day in the dog park with Maxi an older woman approached me.  She stopped and looked at me and asked me what was wrong.  I told her I had arthritis in my spine and that I was in pain.  She took my hands in hers and looked into my face.  She told me to call a doctor at Hospital Italiano.  It was a very strange meeting.  She made me repeat his name 3 times and to promise to call him.

I go to this dog park every Sunday with Maxi.  We are the same crowd of people.  I have never seen this woman there before.  She said she was from Tandil and her dog needed to run.  I figured that I had seen so many idiot doctors, one more didn't matter.  There was something about this woman, that made me want to call for an appointment.  It took almost 2 months to get one with him.

Two weeks ago I went to see this doctor.  I was the youngest person in the waiting area by probably 20 years.  I seemed to be the only one not in a wheelchair, using a walker, or a cane.  Talk about feeling out of place.  I clutched my millions of xrays waiting to see him.

I walked into a small room.  There was a doctor sitting behind a computer and a young woman doctor off to the side.  I offered my xrays but he waved them away.  "Sit down." he barked at me.  I did.  I don't think I had much choice.  The other idiot doctors all asked me to tell my life story.  This guy didn't want to hear it.  He started asking me questions. "How do you feel in the morning?"  "How do you feel 2 hours after you get up?"  I could not believe it.  It was like school.  He didn't miss a beat.  He just kept asking me question after question.

Finally he told me to stand up and touch my toes.  I did.  Then they asked me to do a bunch of tests for flexibility.  I wowed them.  I don't think I had much competition, considering the waiting room.  At some point I think they were having fun with me. Then they asked me to lay on the table.  The woman associate began to press points on my body.  I thought I was going to die.  It was horrible.  When she got to my back I wanted to slap her.  I didn't think that was a good idea.

When she was done and I got down, the doctor looked at me and said "Señora, you have fibromyalgia." "Huh?"  That never entered my mind.  He explained that it was very difficult to diagnose, but I had a classic case.  There are 18 points in the body to test.  Usually 11 are inflamed.  I had all 18.  My back was worse because of my dancing.  He told me he felt badly for me.  My arthritis is not that bad nor is the problem with the vertebrae.  This was my problem all along and none of the drugs that I was taking were the right ones.  He gave me a prescription for two more.  "Don't worry." he said to me.  "There are many drugs we can try until we get the right ones. Come back when you can get an appointment, in a month or 6 weeks."

Could it be this simple?  I rushed to fill the prescription.  I am pain free.  It is weird.  For the first time in a long time I have no pain.  I am also sleeping.  What a trip.  I always thought the pain in my shoulders and neck were from using the computer.  The pain in my arms from bad dancers.  I justified everything.

Weather changes still bother me.  Now all I need is tylenol and darvocett instead of an army of drugs.  I am still tired at times, but not like before.  They say this can be corrected.  I am just happy  to be pain free.  I am happy to have my life back.  I can dance again.

The doctor says I have to be monitored.  The drugs sometimes have to change.  Whatever.  He says all the exercise that I do along with the Alexander Technique is great.  I have been reading up on this syndrome as they call it.  Some doctors refuse to believe that it exists.

I always knew throughout this whole ordeal that there would be an answer.  I never gave up.  I just kept going to doctors.  I figured sooner or later I would find one that would know what was really wrong with me.  I finally did and in the oddest way.  In the dog park.

I looked at a couple of forums on fibromyalgia but those places are not for me.  I never wallowed in self pity.  I just kept pushing on.  It was not easy. But it was better than being carved up for something that I didn't have.  I am lucky that in the Argentine medical system I can go to a doctor without a referral. I could have seen every doctor in my book if I wanted. (Now that is a scary thought.) I just had to do it in Spanish and with doctors who hated a patient who knew more than they did at times.  I know my body.

They do not know what causes fibromyalgia.  It can be a tragic event such as my accident was. They say it is the nerve endings gone wild. I know for me, that I will not let it dominate my life.  I am thrilled to death that I do not have pain.  I know now that if it comes back, then there are other drug options.  For the time being it is two pills in the morning and 1 at night, the gym, walking, and of course tango.

Comments

[Lusiphurscyla]

Great! Latin American doctors usually are very talented...specially in Argentina or Cuba.

[Cathy]

Yahoo! That's fabulous that you have found the root of the problem and are pain-free! Isn't that bizarre about the woman in the park... she must have been sent to you to help. Besos. . .

[Donald]

The Angel of Tandil.

[Mari]

Deby, I am so happy for you that you have found a doctor you can trust. It makes all the difference in the world. I also have fibro. Two of my doctors told me that dancing tango would be far too "ambitious" and that I should just stick to walking. I kept dancing, and I kept trying to find the right combination of drugs and physical therapy. I've found it now - the right balance. Who knows how long it will last before I have to change things again. What do we ever know for certain? For now though, I can dance.

[Mario Oliveto]

Way to go Deby! ..snd for not letting them carve you up.