Note: Personal health issues ahead. Posting to help others in similar situtations. I don’t want your pitty or to make you feel sorry for me. Enjoy good vibes instead elsewhere.
Laying in my bed, my pain in my lower back was so excurasting that I cried. My Mom gave me her heating pad, and I took some advil. My back still hurt. This was a normal day for me before I decided to get help. I didn’t want to get on medicine and become a pill head. I didn’t want to seem weak. I’m only 19 I thought, so I should suck it up. Besides, I don’t have good health insurance, so my family and I couldn’t afford to do anything about it. Swimming, streching, and walking may temporarily help, but the pain always comes back. I’m too young for this shit I say to myself.
One night, the pain got so bad that I implored my Mom and Grandma to take me to the local hospital. They gave me some muscle relaxers and some sticky pad thing. It helped, but the pain is still there. Luckily, I got medicaid, so I didn’t financially burden my family. A few months later, I got a full-time job with actual proper health insurance. So, I went to my doctor, and he refered me to Physical Therapy. The dude gave me a fucking dodgeball to place behind my back and made me do excerises. Of course it didn’t help, and he misdisanogised me. My new doctor in Chicago said he shouldn’t have told me I had x condition when he didn’t even order an x-ray or MRI. The new doctor sent me to physical therapy in Chicago, and it actually helped me a little bit. Unfortunately it only helped the pain temporiarly. After months he sent me to back surgeon, and he said he didn’t see anything in my MRI. So he sent me to an arthitics doctor that ordered some tests, but didn’t find anything.
I moved back home, and my doctor sent me to pain management. They gave me muscle relaxers and something for the pain. They also sent me to a chriopractor (psudeoscience), but it actually made me feel 100% healed. Until an hour later. Then he stopped pulling on my legs and cracking my back which resulted in the relief. Then I moved to college, and couldn’t get any help for my back due to the colleges garbage insurance. Moved back home, got another MRI and x-ray. Finally a new pain mangement doctor saw I have socloisics and arthistis. They perscribed me something different and it helps. It doesn’t cure me though. Now, I’m in the proceess of getting steroid injections and they’re going to try burning nerves. Back pain fucking sucks and the insurance game irks me. I’ve been dealing with this shit for multiple years, and everyday I’m still in pain. I’m not as bad as I was, but I’m still hurting. In hindsight, I wish I started treatment eariler and stayed in the same location.
Meanwhile, I’m dealing with mental health issues where I dry heave and worry constantly. Also depression, anxiety, dyslexia and 5 other formal diagnoses. I should’ve started treatment for that stuff a long time ago, but I wanted to be normal. I didn’t last two months at my first three jobs, because of my mental health sympthoms. It makes getting a job signficantly more difficult. Many people with Autism are unemployed much less combined with all the shit I have. Anyways, remote jobs I lasted the longest, but I left after a year max. I’m unemployed now and haven’t been able to get a job since December 2024. Health wise I’m in a much better place, but I have a long way to go. Keep your head up and lock in.