Part 3: What happened to my Back Pain??
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| Bulge at L5, source Wikimedia Commons, CC License |
I wrote about quitting smoking a few weeks ago. Catalyst for my quitting was the daily, excruciating back pain I experienced for over a year. After hysterectomy surgery on February 17 my back pain disappeared completely.
Because of abdominal incisions, I have been unable to continue my daily yoga-pilates-core exercises which kept the pain at bay for the past several months. In the past 3 weeks I have done no core exercises, and taken no pain killers for several days, and I have had no nerve pain from my bulging disc at all.
My bulging disc is still there but the pain is completely gone. I put this to the surgeon at my 3-week follow up, and she was pretty nonchalant, "Yeah, that can happen." Her further commentary was that the largest of my 3 fibroids was around the back of my uterus, and it protruded out toward my spine, in the L5-S1 region...and now that pressure is gone (this was noted in my spinal MRI months earlier).
Mothers-to-be get back pain!
On a related note, I had a walking date with my good friend CG Says SomethingLoudly, who is my age and a also new-ish mom. When I told her about my absent L-5 lower spinal agony, she gave a knowing look and reminded of something women with babies have experienced.
Basically, an expanding uterus pushes on both the internal organs and the lower spine. She reminded me that she was also in constant pain when carrying my namesake, baby Simon, a few years ago. It never occurred to me that the fibroid was also the cause of my back pain. It well may have been.
A Note About Loss
I struggled with the loss of my feminine identity with losing my
"baby-making" parts even though I was too old to make babies anyway. Go
figure.
-Adrienne
-Adrienne
I have gotten several personal messages from a diverse strata of friends who have had hysterectomy. Some have been wounded by the loss of their baby-making parts, and the end of that part of their lives. This is an emotional response that does not apply to me, but is no less valid. My best girlfriend was moved to tears when she saw me after my surgery (and I made her press my tummy incisions, to see if they felt normal).
A friend from grad school, who messaged me after my first post, told me that her feeling of loss was all-encompassing:
feeling...something has been taken away from me...I have questions of if I could have done thing differently earlier in my life but I cycle out quickly because it can't be changed...I'm learning how to engage peace.
-Tracy
Coming up: Part 4: second follow-up
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