Fear

[cjsmith]

Today I am facing my fear that the surgery won't help.

It might do very little. Of the problems visible with MRI, only one will be corrected by surgery.

The way I face fear is by making plans. If the surgery doesn't help I will, in this order:

1. Ice a lot. Continue this while trying other steps.
2. Try a heavy dose of anti-inflammatories for a brief period to see what happens.
3. Ask Dr. O about causes/recommendations for the tendon and ligament problems (actual question probably asked earlier, at surgery time). Try injected corticosteroid if offered. Try physical therapy tailored to this problem if offered.
4. Try acupuncture.
5. Stop the ice and try prolotherapy.
6. Go to a pain clinic. This step is the end of the line for me, so the next step is...
7. Accept the problem as permanent and learn to love being a physically inactive person.

Comments

Re: ozone and acupunture

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking the time to put together this explanation!

I looked at the links (haven't, obviously, read the book at this point) and it seems that the chief benefit of ozone therapy would be to take out bacteria, viruses, and various bodily toxins. I'll check with my doctor about just what kind of damage I have to those tendons and ligaments. I'm pretty sure there's no infection going on. The structures are "thickened", and that could mean inflammation, edema, scar tissue, probably other things I haven't thought of myself... who knows what. I have the MRI images but I'm not trained to read them.

Thank you for the acupuncture recommendation! It's the first one I've ever gotten. She'll be the first person I want to check out.

Re: ozone and acupunture

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

I had to think about what you said here about ozone (and what I had said that you read) and take time to wonder how close-to-correct or far-from-correct it is to categorically summarize it as useful for viruses/bacteria/toxins. Clearly it IS useful for all those, and I DO think of it that way exactly, and I do think that is A LOT OF what it does. Yet I think this is incomplete for a couple of different reasons.
a. I think there are some (other) known biological reactions to ozone in the body that I'm less familiar with (or at least less articulate about)
b. "just" getting rid of viruses/bacteria/toxins probably results in some things getting helped that we would not "expect". I'm not claiming I know the exact interactions, but cancer and back disc problems can/often-are helped by ozone, which might not exactly seem obvious from the prior comments.
One of the "problems" for me of knowing (some) about ozone (and this also applies to other way-out stuff I know about) is that I'm often not sure what it is "good for" exactly (and to what degree). Few instance, here are A FEW of the conditions that the European-based medical society for ozone says that they use (or recommend?) ozone for: acne, arthritis, asthma, cancers, constipation, glaucoma, scars after radiation, senile dementia, ulcers..... (The list I'm copying from is fairly old, as I'm copying from a book. I picked a small % of the things listed. No doubt a newer list is online somewhere.)
I don't usually suggest therapies "randomly", I generally do it because something tickles some particular data or reasoning. (Oh, I could go on here....) I think (not sure) in your case it was more the "end of the line" idea. That is, a motivated person (which you obviously are) may want to consider ozone (and actually lots of other things, I meant it also as an example) before giving up forever. Also, for a motivated person there are a lot of options, and some things work PARTIALLY or IF APPLIED CONSISTENTLY. Which is good for motivated people but not much interest otherwise.
(Oops, just looked at the clock, gotta go.)
Best, Moria