New on here and sick of pain.

I have bad discs in my neck and can relate. Send me a friend request.

Feel free to add me!

I've been a chronic back pain sufferer for 10 years, and i'm only 41. I have DDD, along with a "soft tissue injury" (could not be diagnosed) which flares up from time to time. Not as debilitating as you, but quite painful. I was tired of the pain too, which also affected my hips, knees and feet. I started going to physio with mainly active sessions which helped me lose weight and strengthen my muscles. I'm down 45 lbs, I feel fantastic, strong, and back pain is near to none most days of the year. I also ate a balanced diet, focusing on increasing my protein and vegetables, limiting wheat and starch (some call it "white death").

I think you will find that the weight loss will help immensely with the pain and level of exercise you are able to do.

Sorry some of us are slow to respond (like me). Welcome! Some good info above. No matter what you choose to do just don't give up. What works for me may not work for you. If you quit and gain weight back it is only cause you have not fully committed to it yet. Nothing wrong with practicing. Best of luck and keep your chin up!!!

stevew_68 wrote: »

Hi everyone. Hope this post finds you all well and positive.
I have decided that after years of chronic pain with a prolapsed disk and also potentially suffering from degenerative disk disease in my back, that I need to look at losing weight. I have hovered around the 17 stone mark for far too long now. My life is pretty much sedentary. I work in an office, and then on top of that, my back problems mean I cannot exercise the way I would like to, even swimming is too risky according to my GP. I have just got back on my feet after 5 weeks being bed bound due to a flare up in my back. I'm struggling to walk and distance without pain. I have even taking to buying a wheelchair for when my back flares up and I cannot walk. Its really got to that point.
I have taken the steps of digging out my old Fitbit One ( and also getting my partner to start using her as well so we can support each other ), and persuading myself to start using my MFP account and logging all my food. I'm also tempted to get a set of Fitbit Aria scales, for that extra motivation.
I am hoping, that though MFP, I can find motivation and support from all the users on here.

steve based on my experience it will be hard to work your way back to being mobile but here are some of my recently efforts to do so.

Being 63 now my limitations stem from Ankylosing Spondylitis form of arthritis over the past 40 years. I was not able to walk much or get out of a car without help this past summer. I have had 3 hip replacements and and knee and shoulder surgery to clean up some of the arthritis damage since 1991. The AS fused most of my entire spine so I do not think I have any disk issues since they are all one long bone like stick without much of any movement.

Again no one can with integrity can tell you or anyone what you need to do over the internet but I will tell you some things that I have done that has helped me. They could be bad or good for you but you can read up things I have done using Google then talk with your doctor.

First I started walking with much pain. With canes I could only make it like 30 meters but over time I got that up 250 meters and now I can on good days do two 250 meter lapse down my small rural farm road.

My top weight was about 18 stones but I had lost much of my muscle strength. When I would fall I could not get myself up without help often. Having little movement from waist up and being fat cause me to fall when outside on rough terrain because I had no way to catch myself after starting to fall.

The doctors wanted me to try Enbrel injections for pain this past summer but when I read about the real risk of cancer and other issues I decided to reject trying Enbrel.

I have spent a few hundred hours reading since 7 Aug 2014 and the more I learn the more I understand how little I know. I do have the training as an optometrist which helps with reading research papers but most of the research is fairly easy to understand in most cases.

The first thing I ran across when reading about Enbrel was of all things Coconut Oil. You you make want to Google that. Keep in mind I was about to go crazy from pain and did not want to get cancer or be drugged out of my mind with pain meds. Since 1996 I had been heavy into taking fish oil because it did decrease my pain so I may have been more open to reading about the medical conditions that some found help from taking coconut oil.

While taking coconut oil did help some with the pain the best help it seemed to offer in my case was after 40 years of IBS my IBS related issues stopped about 30 days after taking 4-8 tablespoons daily by mouth. I should have tapered into the heavy use of coconut oil so I did learn about the Herxheimer Reaction but it passed after a week or two.

After more reading the fact sugar can make arthritis worse keep popping up and I had read this over the years so I decided to stop using sugar. That was when I figured out I had what I would describe now as a sugar/carbohydrate addiction. It was really bad because I would let it cause me to drive to get sugar. For years I realized I have been running mainly on processed foods high in CARBS.

Now my brain and muscles mainly burn ketones instead of only glucose like before I started my current eating lifestyle. Read up on that if you wish. No more sugar crashes is AWESOME in my experience.

Two months into fighting to get free from sugar/carb cravings I was fed up and cut out ALL sugar and in fact all carbs to <50 grams a day.

My pain when from 7-8+ to 2-3 over the past five month on a 1-10 scale and I am able to walk and do more than in years.

Without knowing what I had done I had put myself on a Very Low Carb Very High Fat diet. When you are googling it goes by many names. LCHF diet, Keto diet, Nutritional Ketosis diet and many other terms. I now get about 5% of my calories from CARBS that are like in nuts and other whole foods (<50 grams a day total), about 80% of calories from Fats with coconut oil being my main Fat and about 15% of daily calories from Protein.

While I have lost some weight my efforts have been focused on pain management without using meds with side effects. By cutting the Carbs and using Fish and Coconut Oil I am doing better pain wise then in 40 years.

Steve there are many subjects you can Google that I have already mentioned.

Not sure if you can find your solution for your conditions but I do encourage you to Google and read up on your conditions. I bet you will find at least some help. Regaining hope helped me to push forward.

I wish you the best as you look for your own personal solutions that will work for you.

It is very possible to loose weight with minimal exercise. I have osteo arthritis and am able to bike ride every so often. My main focus is on my intake. i've managed to drop 106 lbs since april of this year.

Hi! I may not have back problems, but I have a severe pain problem (Complex Regional Pain due to MS) and I can relate how exercise is difficult if not impossible. Luckily for us, some of the latest medical research says that exercise, though important for well-being. takes a back seat to food for the purpose of weight loss. 999tigger beat me to the explanation I wanted, so read what he/she has to say. Spot on! Best of luck to you.

I have scoliosis, my spine is S curved, 49% top and 25% bottom. I understand pain. Please add me if you would like.

Hmm well i would forget about exercise for now and focus on your diet. Since you are going to be pretty sedentary and risk boredom, how about trying a moderately low carb diet for a while. This takes the edge of your appetite. Besides its fun for a change and if you don't make yourself go to the extreme end of low carbing. Try it at about 100 carbs a day.

It means you should cut out all wheat based foods and rice, increase your vegetables significantly, moderate your milk, increase all your fats (that's where the fun comes in), ensure your protein intake is appropriate.

You can also try doing the 5:2 fasting diet for a while. These two diets go hand in hand. YOu can learn a lot about the 5:2 diet from the fast diet website. The best way to learn about low carb is to read an old Atkins diet book. And then read some others. But don't be fooled into going into induction. Its not necessary.

I did low carb for six weeks. I started off at 100 carbs a day. Liked it. Decided to try going as low as i could which because i don't eat meat meant that about 40-50 carbs a day was my minimum limit. But when by the end of two weeks, i couldn't bear it anymore. I needed fruit. And i started to miss bread. It was just too extreme for me and to do it properly, it required only a slow gradual increase in carbs and carb foods. Better to start at the top end and wind your way down in my opinion. Even if you don't go into ketosis, you still benefit from reduced carbs.

I have DDD, so I can relate to your pain. But don't let that stop you from getting fit. My therapist and ortho have put me on a few restrictions but I can otherwise do everything else and am working my way back up to running half marathons (just finished a 10k so half way there). One of the things that I learned in therapy that really helps is to strengthen and stabilize the core. It really does prevent flare-ups. Since finishing therapy, I have been able to run faster and lift more than ever. I would strongly recommend working with a good therapist and ortho. It doesn't have to limit you. I swim, bike, run, play tennis, kayak, lift heavy weights, walk several miles each day with my pup, and otherwise workout hard each day without pain. If I feel a twinge (rarely), i pop an anti-inflammatory and am good to go. And for work, get a versadesk (I think that's the name) and get up every hour. Also your diet is very important to keeping the pain away. Well balanced diet of lean protein, whole grains, low fat dairy, fresh fruits and veggies is the way to go.