I have Degenerative Disc Disease anyone else

I have DDD, 5 herniahated discs and sciatica, and I use cannabis to help with pain and muscle spasms with pretty good results but I am finally towards the end of my educational training(college) part of my commercial airline pilot license and in '08 will start my flight training and obviously I will not be able to nor want to smoke anymore with that kind of responsibility but also do not want to go for any of the major medical procedures for the pain and do not want to go on the PRESCRIBED pain medications I was on before(Lortab, Oxycontin, and Avinza) these are serious medications with serious side effects and obviously I couldn't be a pilot on these medications either.
I'm just wondering if anyone out there has had any success with any exercise routines, specific exercises, supplements(vitamins etc.), basically anything anyone has had success with. I am seeing several Dr.s now but just the typical procedure this, new medication that and I'm just looking for some first hand non medical routines etc. anyone has tried with success. All serious input is apprecieated.

The only thing id because I have no desire to be un prescription pain meds for the rest of my life is to just think about every move I make.It becomes a habit to just think about how I'm going to move when I have to twist or bend.If I limit my movements I find that I can be relatively pain free.The weed has never seemed to help me when I do injure my back.It usually takes hard prescrition drugs till for a week till I can move again.

I had my L5 disc removed. After all the therapy, and eating vicodins like M&M's the thing that saved me was acupuncture. That old little Oriental guy brought me back to the living (God bless his soul).

yeah me too if I mess it up bad i need them but weed definately helps me with muscle tension and spasms which cause a dull to sharp numbing pain but if its bad its deffinately off for the meds bc it is unbearable and it sucks bc Im only 23.

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I had my L5 disc removed. After all the therapy, and eating vicodins like M&M's the thing that saved me was acupuncture. That old little Oriental guy brought me back to the living (God bless his soul).
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I've heard this from a few other people in life maybe it's time to open my mind to this anything is better then nothing thnx 2 both of you so far

I have DDD. In 1997 I had c-4 thru c-7 fused and a lot of stenosis removed. The day after the nine-hour surgery, I felt better than I had felt in years.

Now my lower back is all screwed up and I will have surgery to have it corrected.

Check out this Doc. He's doing a whole lot of proceedures with scopes and lasers.

PC :smokin:

Thanks pharmacan that is a great site and I am looking into it now.

i have 3 herniated disks and sciatica (sucks too cause im only 20 yrs old) but recently within the past two months or so my condition has gotten incredibly better. my pain was very debilitating before so much so that i could hardly do anything, including sitting,standing, and all other daily mobile functions.
i did a few medical routes and the biggest medical option that helped me was getting an epidural with some anti-inflammatory stuff in it(cant remember exactly). i was also prescribed lodine with is a non-painkiller anti-inflammatory.
however, the biggest things that helped me was taking 1-Joint Support from Trader Joe's(dont know if you have any of those but its got MSM,Glucosamine,& Chondroitin). 2-getting either a memory foam mattress or mattress cover(probally the biggest help i think) and 3- doing exercises that strengthen your stomach muscles. sit ups and different styles of sit ups.
best of luck to you cause i know the debilitating pain that back pain causes.

My mother has this. Terrible stuff.

You should look into seeing a chiropractor. I work for one and we have many people come in with DDD. We use something called spinal decompression which stretches your back for a certain time and at a certain pressure. This combined with chiropractic adjustments can really make a difference in your health.

Also at most chiropractic offices they do accupuncture, this is also a great way to help with pain and get you into better health.

I have DDD at L-7 and at C-4. I ain't doing no surgery because of the chance of getting worse. You hear a lot of horror stories. That Laser thing looks promising but it's so new I think maybe I should wait a couple years before I try it. I wonder if my insurance would cover that?

I saw this thread come up last night and couldn't bring myself to post in it. Not yet ready to own up to this condition. But I have it, too. I have it in my neck and the start of it in my lumbar region, too. I had nearly 5 hours of surgery to have the disks between C5-6-7 removed and the vertebrae fused exactly two months ago today. I'm just a week and a half out of the cervical collar and back behind the wheel of a car. And I'm having to come to terms with the fact that I may always have some pain from the spinal stenosis and from muscle spasms downstream in T and L where the not-yet-bad-enough-to-operate disks are bulging and the vertebrae spondylosing. I have had good luck with tizanidine (Zanaflex) for the spasms and from physical therapy. Everything I've read has indicated THC alone is good for neurological inflammation, but unfortunately the act of smoking it is not. Smoking anything is, among other things, dessicating to those disks. I'm about to try fairly good-sized doses of glucosamine/chondroitin for a few months to see if that'll lube things up a bit. I would get a lot of relief from ibuprofen, too, but it slows bone fusion and I'm not supposed to take it. (I've cheated three times with a single capsule.)

^^Up above? That recommendation to see a chiropractor? I've had three neurologists, two neurology professors and three neurosurgeons tell me not to go anyplace near a chiropractor for the rest of my life with this condition unless I wanted to take a bad situation and make it far, far worse. Acupuncture is fine. But in the wrong hands, chiropractic manipulation can leave folks like us with permanent spinal damage. I don't know about you, but I already have some of that. Not going to tempt the fates into giving me any more.

I'm real sorry to hear you have it too. It hurts. I knew you had a back problem but didn't know what it was. Yeah, denial ain't just a river in Egypt. I tried to deny it for a long time too, mainly cause it's largely incurable. I just vape, for that THC. But I've found a joint once in a while gives you more "couch lock" and when it's real bad that's what you want. I really hope you feel better. You've proven time and again you're a nice person.

Thanks for the kind words, Qdavid. Yeah, it's a pain. You know, I have some neurological consequences, too, from mine. I mean a sort of whole-body zingy/electrical/over-adrenalized effect that I not only feel in my body and muscles (and it aggravates my already wacky heart electricity) but also in my brain, almost like being in "flight" syndrome all the time, only I'm not feeling emotionally anxious. My heart doc gave me a low dose of a calcium channel blocker that has helped take the edge off the extra irritation to my heart rhythm, and it has helped slightly with the zingy feeling, too. I have a script for klonopin as an anti-convulsant, but I hate to get in the habit of regular benzodiazapenes.

I am just curious whether other people here with spinal stenosis/cord damage have experienced similar effects. It's like there's a low-level electrical storm in my body and brain in certain positions of spinal stress and sometimes even when I'm not stressing out my neck or back. It spooks me. I didn't think that would still be here after the surgery was over. I know nervous system healing is slow, but I want this to go away ASAP. You have anything like this with yours, Qdavid? Anyone else?

I got a shit load of things wrong with me, Im an advocate for mj!:jointsmile:

welcome sd to the best bb in this side of the rockies! Dont exceed dosage~~

:jointsmile:

I don't have that electro you talk about. Pain comes in phases, like 2-3 week stints that nothing seems to relieve. I think it's getting worse. The last episode I had was in my lower back but before that I had a problem with the cervical disks with the pain in my right arm. Bicep one day then forearm the next. Scared the hell out of me. I thought it was MS or something. But then it went away and I read that's a symptom of a cervical disk problem. That's the first time that one happened though. The toes on my right foot always feel asleep but thats from the lumbar problem. But no. I don't get that "flighty" feeling. Maybe that's more from your heart issues? I avoid taking any chemicals and will not ever take methadone as I read some dude did. But especially with your heart issues, I wouldn't hesitate taking those drugs, especially with your ace husband heart doc right there. I really do hope you feel better.

Yep I have the elctric shock and the numbing and other stuff as a result but the worst is if I bend the wrong way or try to go to fast my whole left leg goes completely and totaly numb and down I go, it's the worst because it can mess me up worse and it is REALLY embarrassing because everyone thinks you trip on nothing lol. I wish I could say I was glad not to be alone but I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. Thanks for all the posts and look forward to hearing more maybe we can rename the thread as a place to talk about our DDD just a thought.

I tried to edit that last one to add this, but I guess I type too slow.

By the way, I read the one he wrote about how when you were in for your heart he stepped out and they did something he knew would have hurt. I think you were out anyway. He said if you were awake you would have squawked. Hahaha. The bird squawking. He's a funny man

Man, this is real weird. I understand that not wishing it on your worst enemy. Embarrassment is only half of it though, with pain being the other half. It just sucks being embarrassed when you're in pain. Sorry if you feel hijacked.