In the beginning...

From what I understand, disc injuries usually start with an event.  I started having back pain when I was 18, and the only traumatic injury I can remember having that summer was a good fall while mountain biking.  The guy ahead of me swerved to miss something, lost control and went down.  I swerved to miss him and went down.  He broke his collarbone, and I limped around for a few days with some hip pain.  I don't see why I couldn't have bulged some diskage there somehow.

Shortly thereafter, I went to Dr. Schneider because my back was hurting.  Dr. Schneider was my mom's doctor, local, and so I went.  He x-rayed my back and told me about my bonus vertebrae.  He also told me that because of it, I would always have back pain and the only thing he do was prescribe me pain meds.  Crazily enough, my mom was on every medication known to man for all her various ailments and of course, side effects of those medications.  I knew I didn't want to venture down that road.  At least I was smart about something at 18.  Want to know what Dr. Schneider is doing now?  Thirty years.

A year or so later, I decided to get a second opinion.  The back pain had come back.  It was never around for very long, a week or two at the most.  I was on my dad's insurance and went to a military doctor.  He told me that because of that bonus vert, I would always have back pain.  He then told me that as long as I was overweight, I would have more problems.  Between that and wanting to be a cop, I went off and lost 50 pounds.  Like he said, I would still have this pain that showed up for a few days at a time.  I got to the point where if it started hurting, I'd take things easy for a few days, and it would chill out.

The pain always felt like it does now, only maybe not as bad and definitely not for this long.  Is there a possibility I have had bulging discs for a while?  Who knows.  The Good Doc that I go to now didn't initially suspect a disc problem.  He thought it was SI Joint Dysfunction.  If you look at the symptoms of that, well, that's what I feel.  Pain in the lower back/right hip, worse when standing/sitting, extreme pain when sneezing or coughing.  Good Doc did some other stuff to make him think this, moving me around in different ways and whatnot.

I like the Good Doc.  He ordered x-rays of my back.  Slight Scoliosis.  He ordered MRI of my back.  Two ruptured discs.  He gave me a referral to the non-surgical Spine Doc, who I will see later.  Then I passed out in his office while I was reading the rest of MRI report.  Do you want to know that I have an unremarkable uterus?  Well, I do.