Stuff I’ve done:

1) Rest

2) Antinflammatories

3) Core Exercises, swimming

4) Waited 5 months (6 months of pain usually means it won’t get any better)

5) Spoken with my GP,  physiotherapist, chiropractor, naturopathic doctor and a sports doctor

6) Inversion table

So far, there has been no real change for me.  Pain gets worse with activity, though walking helps tremendously.  It’s mostly forward/flexion and twists that are doing me in.   I tried a light Ashtanga practice a few weeks back and was in quite a bit of pain until I took some anti-inflammatories.

Stuff I’m working on:

1) An appointment with my local spine specialists at Caleo

2) Entertaining the idea of participating in an FDA phase II clinical trial of MPC stem cell injections into my disc in Denver (Mesoblast).  The trial is still awaiting FDA approval and I might not even be a viable candidate.

3) I’ve forwarded my MRI and Xray results on to the top spine surgeons in Spain, Germany and the UK that do artificial disc replacements.  It’s an expensive procedure that has a high success rate, but I’d like to avoid surgery if possible.  It is not covered by Alberta Healthcare as far as I can tell and I might not even be a viable candidate.

4) I’ve forwarded the same data on to The Celling Treatment Center in the US… they do a hybrid approach to disc repair with laser surgery and stem cells.  Very experimental, but it might work.  We’ll see what their assessment is.

That’s about it.  It is now a waiting game now.  Luckily I stumbled upon Mike F’s blog while researching online and he’s been a great help.  Keep up the good posts, Mike! (his back problems were very close to what I’m going through now and he went with the Spinal Kinetics M6-L after extensive research)

-Brett