Ok, if you were able to read the last post, you heard all my complaining about the pain that I was in on the bike. Well yesterday I went in to see Dr. H and we did all the muscle testing again like the last time. Again, I had muscle weakness in my left upper body that was made worse when my neck was in extension but was alleviated when my neck was in flexion. We also found out that in spine flexion (sitting on the floor and bending forward at the waist) and my neck in flexion as well, caused major tightness in my hamstrings. My hamstrings are normally pretty flexible. When we lifted my head up so that my neck was in neck extension, the hamstring tightness went away. Weird.
Dr. H asked me to run and ride my bike over the weekend and document all my aches and pains to see if he could find any patterns. What hurts when I run is different from what hurts on the bike. I start out good but as the workout progresses my power output drops off quite substantially on both the run and the bike and at the end I feel like I am slogging through it and doing it dragging cement blocks behind me. The soreness that follows is located in the muscles that were not hurting during the workout.
So what does this all mean????
It means that Dr. H believes that I have torqued my dural sheath. HUH??!!??
Dura Matter: Outer Grey Layer
Dura mater is an anatomical term with Latin origin that literally means “tough mother.” The dura mater, or pachymeninx, is the outermost, toughest, and most fibrous of the three membranes, or meninges, covering the brain and spinal cord. The pia mater and arachnoid mater make up the remaining layers of the meninges, with the piamater being the innermost layer. The dura mater is comprised of two layers itself; a superficial layer and the deeperdura mater proper.
Ha! "tough mother" I love it. The tough mother has injured her "tough mother". Because the dura also covers the nerves that branch off of the spinal cord, any jarring of the dura will affect the entire nervous system. This can cause a mysterious muscular pains that have no pattern all over the body and have no pattern from one mode of activity to another. Dr. H also wants to rule out that I have a bulging disk at C7 in my neck. C7 is located low in the neck near the shoulders. I had a bulging disk in my lumbar spine 4 years ago and the pain I have now is nothing like I had 4 years again. It is totally different. But trust me, right now as I type this, my neck is sore and tight. Oh yeah, I am tired of the ocular migraines that cause hazy sparkly patches in my vision that move around my line of sight and come and go based on whether my hair is in a pony tail or not.
So Thursday at 10:30 a.m. I will have an MRI on my cervical spine. The results should get to Dr. H in 48 hours and since Monday is a holiday I will not find anything out until at least next Tuesday. I am going to hate waiting on that.
I hope I can get a nap in while I am inside that noisy MRI tube.
Later Gators,
Liz
6 comments:
Good Luck! I hope they are able to find out quickly what the true problem is!!!
Wow - every time I read something like this, it just brings home once again how incredibly complex our bodies are, and how resilient most of the time - until something goes wrong. Sounds like some time for some tough mother love, Liz. Take good care of yourself in the meantime. Art
Hope it went well this morning, and keep things easy for a few days.
How did your MRI go?
Rare parasites, torqued "tough motherfuckers" or whatever they're called in Latin... Man, you have some of the strangest injuries I have ever heard of. Are you sure you're not secretly on the cast of Ass Hole? Good thing you have medical insurance!
Good luck on your road to recovery! I'm due for a chest xray in 2 weeks if my high fibre diet and medication doesn't help my chest pains. My heart is overworked due to the low oxygen levels in my body causing the chest pains which feels like the onset of a stroke.
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