I've been through every back treatment out there except for spinal fusion & microdisectomy. I was a very competitive gymnast & when I was 16 I fell off the bars & fractured my L-1 & L-3 vertabrate. I have severe degenerative disc disease in my L1, L2 & L3 discs which basically means there's no cushion left in those discs & before the treatment I've had now on it, it was bone rubbing on bone. I can't even begin to describe how painful that was. I was on oxycontin for 6 yrs & having to listen to doctors tell me I was faking the pain to get drugs.

Anyway, shortly after I started dancing I met a chiropractor who worked as a bouncer at night to pay off his student loans. We got to talking & I was telling him my situation. He told me there was this new thing out that he thought would help me. I honestly didn't think it would because I've been through epidural steroid injections, trigger point injections, sacro-illiac joint injections, IDET, Nucleoplasty, Ablasion where they cauterize the nerves and an implantable nerve pain stimulator and Vax-D. None of it gave me any pain relief. The only thing IDET helped was with my hip, leg & arm pain that I would get, it was a painful tingling. Anyway, he told me if this treatment didn't work, he'd give me back my money. My insurance at the time didn't cover it, it was $4000. I went through the treatment, no needles, no drugs. It's call Disc Decompression. It was developed by NASA and it involves putting a belt on you, hooked you up to a computerized machine and slowly (like 20 sessions) pulling & stretching your back out. Same concept as traction but way more precise & advanced. I can happily say that I don't have back pain anymore and I'm off all the narcotic painkillers I was on. I don't even take advil for my back pain! I had spine surgeons urging me to go thru fusion & it turns out if I would've gone thru with it, they would've removed the wrong disc!

Now, I don't know if this would help you, I'm only sharing my experience. I would recommend you at least go for a consultation with a chiropractor who offers Disc Decompression to see if you're a candidate. With you saying you're shorter now makes me wonder if you also have degenerative disc disease. (my 3 discs were completely collapsed). Before you go thru tons of shots, pills, scans,etc. I'd recommend you go for a consult with a chiropractor who does that treatment. If you're a candidate, it will be the easiest, most painless way to go. I wish I had known about it when my back pain got bad. I went thru hell for those 6 yrs, actually 8 if you want to include detoxing off oxycontin. I had tons of injections and wound up getting a spinal headache on 3 different occasions (it's when the doctor goes in too deep & pokes your cerebrospinal fluid membrane & your cerebrospinal fluid (which is there to cushion your brain) leakes out into your body. It was horrible! If you have any other questions, you can PM if you want. I hope you get to feeling better, I know what's it's like.

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