If you have not yet read Chronic Pain and Cor­ti­sone, Part 1, please do so now.

When it came time for Dan to head to the fit­ness cen­ter, for my sec­ond post-cortisone trip (6 days after the injec­tions),  I chose to stay home and enjoy my still-increasing sore­ness.   But I felt a bit guilty and thought I should at least do some­thing to con­tinue form­ing a habit of mak­ing fit­ness a pri­or­ity, so I vowed spend some time with wiiFit.

And I did.

For all of 60 sec­onds.

I don’t know what hap­pened, but stand­ing on the wiiFit board aggra­vated my back almost instantly.  It was all I could do to gut out the body test… 100% of my pain returned, instantly.  I tried to ignore the dis­com­fort and play some games, but I couldn’t see straight.

You know the feel­ing… Your vision blurs.  Your hear­ing fades.  You feel par­a­lyzed… Inca­pable of breath, move­ment, and thought.

After col­laps­ing back onto the couch, I opened the draft I had begun prior to din­ner, and prior to my wiiFit fiasco, and started typing:

Nev­er­mind what I said.  This is far too early to be pass­ing judg­ment regard­ing the effec­tive­ness of cor­ti­sone shots as treat­ment for my chronic pain.  All I can say is what I know:

• Cor­ti­sone shots are common.
• Cor­ti­sone shots feel strange.
• Cor­ti­sone shots made me hurt for two days.
• Cor­ti­sone shots relieved my pain for five days, until tonight.

Beyond these sim­ple state­ments, I can­not say much.  But, you know me… Give me time, and I will give you an hon­est opin­ion based on per­sonal expe­ri­ence and research.

.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…

Now, three weeks after my first expe­ri­ence with cor­ti­sone injec­tions, and two weeks since I wrote the above, I am back to share my experience.

While the cor­ti­sone injec­tions helped reduce my back pain, I feel a bit hung up on the fact that I am treat­ing yet another symp­tom, while the cause (known or oth­er­wise) con­tin­ues to exist (I assume).  Maybe I should not be so quick to write off the ben­e­fit?  The injec­tions did break a season-long cycle of pain.  And I firmly believe that is a nec­es­sary step in erad­i­cat­ing pain… teach­ing your body not to hurt.  Call me new-age or crazy, but I’m right.

In clos­ing, to be hon­est, I don’t think I will get these shots again.  I appre­ci­ate the pain relief and can’t imag­ine what I would have done with­out it, but the cor­ti­sone didn’t fix the cause, so when I lift things, bend just right, or sit for extended peri­ods of time I still hurt.  I do not want to grow depen­dent on just reliev­ing pain.  I want to heal.  I want to get well.  And, after research­ing cor­ti­sone, I don’t want to put any­more in my body.  I find no fault with those who get reg­u­lar shots, I can’t blame them.  The relief is notice­able and has dras­ti­cally increased my mobil­ity and endurance.  How­ever, I fear the side effects.

Hav­ing said that, I admit I can imag­ine a day, not long from now when I remem­ber just how badly I hurt and just how much relief the injec­tions pro­vide, when I will retract this goal and make a return visit to my ortho­pe­dic doctor.

In the mean time I am pur­su­ing another route through recov­ery to well­ness.  More on that, to come.