Lynn
Posted : 4/23/2006 9:48:55 PM
Dyan,
The problem with chondrotin is that it is very, very expensive to manufacture. Truth is, a lot of brands say that they have it in there, but it's relly not there. For years I use NOW brand glucosimine only and did well. I did so well that I quite taking it. A year ago I hurt myself again and have been in tremendous pain since. I have osteo-athritis where the cushining is gone between the disk.
I am now taking CosaminDS because it is the only product used in extensive studies and it does have both. I get mine at the Vitamin Shoppe because they carry the tablets. Walgreens has the capsules, but I can't take them because the taste is soooo bad thru the capsule, that I can't even swallow it. I buy the 75 tablet bottle because I never have enough cash to buy the bigger bottles. LOL. Yes, it is expensive.
Those shooting pains down the leg are just terrible. The best relief I found - also not cheap - was a really, really good massage person. And by massage, I don't mean the relaxing kind. I found someone who would do the deeper tissue massaging combined with a lymphatic type of massage to get the blood flowing in that area again.. And the first 6 - 8 visits was a type of torture. And every time I would re-hurt myself again, the next few visits were very painful as well. But, if I managed to respect my limits of where I was at at the moment, and not hurt myself again, then the deep massaging got better each time. And this person was really good and knew NOT to go too deep. If you do this, you need someone who has the training to do way more than massage, but who has the ability to know "just how far" to go. It really matters. The muscles get all tight and bound up and you have to work those kinks out. It doesn't happen overnight. So, you can't have someone go in there and get really deep in those muscles to start with, or it will just cause other muscles to tighten up and then he would be in more pain. You need to find someone who will respect what his pain tolerance is. And, suprisingly, even tho it was my lower back, she would find areas of my upper back that didn't hurt until she started massaging, but then it would hurt. That's because my upper back was trying to compensate and "protect" my lower back. It may hurt while the area is first being worked on, but common sense will tell you how much is too much. It shouldn't hurt afterwards, but might be sore. "Regular" massages won't help at all, in my opinion, and from my experience.
In the meantime, there are pressure points which should help immensly to remove the pain. Most of the ones you can work on for him are all in the buttuck region. Yep, no pun intended, but our butts carry a LOT of stress. I'll do my best to describe this. It's going to sound funny with me typing these words, but hopefully you'll understand what I'm saying. Basically, you are not massaging this area as much as pressing down in spots and looking for sore locations. There will be no doubt to him when you find one of these. There will likely be multiple points, 3 - 5 probably, on each side that are really tender and really sore. The trick is to press down fairly hard until this pressure point has "released". I can't describe in words how much pressure. You don't want to leave bruises, or be so very hard that it makes it more sore, but it does have to have enough pressure that is is uncomfortable. I was told it would only take about 3 seconds. It always took much longer for me. Maybe 10 seconds before it would release for me on the really stubborn ones.. Maybe 6 seconds on the easier ones. Every person will be different. The very first time, and only the first time, it hurt so bad that I just started crying. But I wouldn't let the person stop because I knew it would help. And it really did. None have ever been that sore again, but boy they do get sore! And I literally sigh in relief afterwards. It's an instant relaxation of those muscles areas for me. This just seems to de-stress that area. After those are done, then it would help to "massage" that area, but again, I don't mean the regular type of action. It would be similiar to taking one small muscle group at a time and just doing a back and forth, with some pressure, over that one muscle group at a time. This would take both hands in order to cover more territory.
Anyway, it really makes a huge difference to me. I can't do them very well on myself, but when I start hurting, I can do them myself enough now to keep the pain at bay because I try not to let it get that bad. I'm not sure what it is, but in my mind of think of it as like a muscle intersection that's backed up with too much traffic and I'm unjamming the traffic flow (or the blood flow, or whatever). It helps with the lower back pain for me, and it is always the best thing to stop those shooting pains down my legs. I've not found anything else that works as well at relaxing those muscles. Not saying that muscle relaxants wouldn't help, but this seems to do way more to help than any one other thing for a sciatica nerve problem. At least for me. And for me, it helps immediately. I hope I've explaines this well. Good luck.