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[Radars]

after all that I've been reading, and my symptoms of back pain just doing everyday things and compression fracture breathless when going for my daily walk it is only a matter of time before I am in hospital, it's not looking good for me I'm afraid.

[CallMeSunny]

Dear Radars, you seem to be increasingly anxious regarding the symptoms you describe and I think you perhaps need more reassurance than we can give. Please do phone your doctor to explain your fears and tell them how anxious you have become; they are able to prescribe excellent medications and help, you don’t have to remain as worried as you obviously are. All of us on here care….but we aren’t able to help much …so please make that phone call, you won’t regret it.

[DeannaAlphi]

Hi Radars. I totally understand your anxiety. When I had my vertebral fractures, I was in dreadful pain for quite some time and also thought I was going to need a wheelchair. Even worse, sitting was the most painful thing for me to to. I could not even find a painfree position in my bed. Before my back injury, I had surgery on my shoulders, wrist and one foot. In fact I only have one joint in my right shoulder now, the other had simply crumbled.

I have had hard falls flat on my back and no further vertebral fractures. I was so afraid of falling and watching where I trod, that I walked hard into a metal fire escape which was at my forehead level. I had no back injury from the fall, just a huge lump which has left a dent in my forehead and I had dizzy spells for a while.

It is not a foregone conclusion that just because we have had vertebral fractures that more will follow. For me the diagnosis Of Severe Osteoporosis was worse than the actual injury. The anxiety and fear of not knowing was dreadful and being in a state of anxiety is not good for our bones. I learned to accept the pain and just kept going, doing everything I could to help myself. The human body is a wonderful thing and if we help it along it will help us by healing itself as best it can. In my case the process has taken years to improve as much as I have.

I've no idea how recent your fracture is. Be patient with your pain, keep moving and accept that we cannot know, no doctor can foretell our fate. Xrays and scans are not accurate, they are only indicators. Bone density is not bone strength.

Take the best care of yourself and do everthing you can to find the cause of your breathing difficulty. Pester your doctor with wanting to know the cause of your breathing difficulty. Too often doctors just hand out inhalers. You know, anxiety by itself can affect our breathing and give us asthma type symptoms. Complementary therapies might also be worth trying. I saw a homeopath 4 times plus had 3 treatments of accupuncture.

The other thing I found helpful was using a sauna. It helped with the pain so much that I eventually bought one and use it at home. I have a far infra red sauna which I bought half price. It does not give uncomfortable heat like normal saunas, you just feel warm yet it makes you sweat. I found out about this by accident. My friend had one and invited me to join her.....it relieved my pain for a couple of days with one use. I believe the NHS would save a lot of money on pain killers which don't work if they prescribed the use of these saunas. They give a lot of health benefits as well as pain relief.

Just take a day at a time and if you do go to a hospital do not decide to give up on yourself. If you are taking daily walks you are fitter than I was....I could only hobble very slowly round the house. Now I'm planning and looking forward to getting back to the dance floor. Give yourself the gift of time and perseverance. You have a lot of positive well wishing and support from people on this forum. I wish you the very best and if I had a magic wand I'd magic away your anxiety before anything else. Di Doh xx

[Radars in reply to DeannaAlphi]

Deanna thankyou, how do you know when you have fractured I am going just by pain in my back after doing everyday things at home, and a bit breathless when I go for my daily walk, they say a fracture heals after 3mths, how are you supposed to know when it's healed if you don't know when it fractured, and my breathless is caused by compressed disc's, I can't see that getting any better. I have stopped doing pressups because they said it causes pressure on the spine dint know that,

[DeannaAlphi in reply to Radars]

An xray of your spine will show if you have a fracture. Your doctor can arrange an xray and if yor doctor cant help you further, the hospital or a physio may be able to.

[Radars in reply to DeannaAlphi]

thanks, I had a chest x-ray about a month ago would that have reached my spine.

[DeannaAlphi in reply to Radars]

No, no, no. A chest xray is very different to a spinal xray. Get yourself properly checked out. You cannot simply assume you know what an injury is without checking it out properly. Back pain can be caused by different things. Your pain could even be from a slipped or bulging discs between the vertebrae. Once you know what it is then you'll be guided how to best get it helped. Please go to see your doctor. Wish you the best.

[josephinius1 in reply to DeannaAlphi]

Thank you for your very uplifting response, and the tip about sauna. My husband loves the sauna and has talked about getting one for our home, but he's all worried (aside from the expense, of course,) that if it makes you sweat, then you'll sweat out minerals and that will hurt, not help the bones. He also has osteoporosis, not as severe as mine but he's already had fractures, too. He's not "constantly aware" though, like I now am, and I'm at the point of "if it helps with pain, I'm in." (And if it also doesn't require me getting off my duff...:-O.) God bless you!

[DeannaAlphi in reply to josephinius1]

Drink plenty of extra water before and after using a sauna. It will help rid your body of toxins in your sweat and clean your whole system. Our sweat glands are designed to excrete waste products, similar to our bladder. Google will tell you all you need to know about saunas and the many health benefits they give. There are different types on sale so get advice and research which would suit you best. Have a look on youtube too.

I bought mine from the Robert Dyas website here in the UK. I got it during lockdown and was lucky to get it at half it's proper price. I have noticed since that the same time every year they sell some at half price, just for a few days.

I love mine, try to use it for about 1/2 an hour, a couple of hours before my bedtime. I try to use it at least twice a week. Always sleep extra well when I've used it. If you do get one, take a long time to decide which sort to get. Look at the pros and cons of each type and check reviews. In the meantime a good old fashioned hot water bottle can help with pain too. Wish you both well. xx

[josephinius1]

Agreeing with the other post-ers here. I feel your anxiety--I'm here a lot, too, because I'm anxious, too, and I don't have a lot of answers, yet, because I know how demanding pain is. But...I can't say this for sure, it just seems like there's a correlation...during the worst of covid, well, 2021 for me, I was very anxious/worried (never mind why 😜.) I had had some warning that my back was going to be trouble but through that time, I still could do with my body everything I wanted to do. Then in 2022 it was like everything related to my back fell apart. I finally got the DEXA in Jan 2023, and was aghast at my scores. I had no reference point, but when I broke my wrist in December 2020, apparently they determined my wrist had osteopenia...maybe it was way "better" than my back, but whatever, it didn't trigger a "You might want to get a DEXA," warning. My point being, they say the progression of osteoporosis is slow, and it should have been slow for me because I WAS actively doing bone building things (still running, strength training.) Yet, by January 2023, at age 61, my lumbar spine had degraded to -4.6, and I don't think they made a mistake, because it had gotten to where "one wrong move" would sideline me.

All to say, and again I can't say this for sure, I don't think the anxiety I experienced in 2021 helped me. Even with respect to covid, I knew, could FEEL that my anxiety was worse than the illness was going to be if I got it, that I was going to kill myself--in a sense--if I didn't get it under control.

I still struggle, obviously, but at least I am aware?

For me, as a Bible believing Christian, anxiety is actually...an offense against God. He promises to keep us in perfect peace if we stay focused on Him/His truths. Of course, the enemy of our souls absolutely does not want that, so...it's a battle. But, for me, if/when I would read the Psalms, I definitely did better. Reading them out loud was better still.

It's ironic (in my world) that I get a handle on the "world anxiety" only to find it got out the big gun--for me--and settled in my spine. Nothing has undone me the way chronic pain (and early on, it was severe--like, no position, no available pain relief, no exercise/stretch/movement could alleviate it, (except I'd forget about it when I slept, only to be reminded of it immediately upon awakening, as I contemplated whether my spine would align itself enough to allow me to walk I sincerely, aside from having no idea what was happening or why, wasn't sure I would have the will to continue to live if it was going to be "like that", and it really was a test of my faith. Finally I had a heart to heart with God, just told Him--He was either going to have to make this easier, or He was going to have to give me more grace.

I think He did both. I still have pain--if anything, it's more pervasive--but it's never been quite as debilitating since then. (I've found that analgesics will actually help, too.) But I also don't think I perceive it quite the same way. Some of that is probably just getting used to it. Accepting it. Which, for me, I consider a gift. That's the grace.

I definitely had a month or two of high anxiety again after my diagnosis--there's always some new test, I guess. Dealing with doctors (in the USA, best I can tell, you do not want to get a chronic, not easily helped condition,) trying to figure out how to keep working when I think my job is actually hurting me, needing the money to pay for all the new stuff insurance won't cover, added to all the ways I already feel inadequate/like a failure, hasn't been easy, and, frankly, my husband, who is himself a high anxiety person, doesn't help. But he seems to be understanding that I take on his anxiety, and if he wants me to be better, he needs to take care of himself. Which he seems to be doing. So, another answer to prayer? Maybe.

You can look at things from many different angles, but no matter how you look at it, there are things we can do to at least not accelerate our own disintegration. I've heard people say meditation really helps them. (For me, reading Psalms out loud is a kind of meditation.) Sadly, there's no question that we will die, but as a Christian, I don't have to fear death--in fact, I can joyfully anticipate it. So that helps. It's the meantime, the not wanting to be useless, not wanting to be sooo self-centered (as pain induces me to be,) in which case I look back to my grandma, who lived to 104, and who took her first major hit in her early 80s, when macular degeneration (which wasn't on the radar then,) took 80% of her vision literally overnight. I'm sure there was an adjustment period for her, too, but if I could define her as anything, it would be "unstoppable". And what she didn't stop was "serving others". It took a little more work, but she found ways.

I don't know what your situation is, but I know for myself, when I am most tempted to close in, shut down, isolate--that's when I HAVE to do something for someone else. Maybe all I can do is write an encouraging note, but...do it. Bake some cookies or bread for a neighbor. Last fall I connected myself with an organization that delivers groceries to older or disabled people. It's kind of ironic...probably I shouldn't be hauling their groceries either...but so far, I've never tweaked anything even lifting bins with gallons of pop or water into/out of my trunk, and I've really come to enjoy my brief visits with the 5-6 folks who are in some way worse off than I am. One of my ladies also has severe osteoporosis, broken many bones, struggles to get herself to her therapy, but we encourage each other (speaking of, she's 81, 4 inches shorter than she used to be, but still on her feet,) to keep moving. Plus, I feel less useless.

Again, I don't know your full situation, and I'm sorry if this feels insensitive. Just know, when I go down, I go down with a vengeance and I know how hard it is to climb back up. And sometimes I don't even want to. But you gotta. And, you really don't have to do it alone. God is always there. As the song says, "Take it to the Lird in prayer."

[Radars in reply to josephinius1]

yeah, you have to try and keep going.

[josephinius1]

*Lord, not Lird...stupid fat fingers!