The Tingles and the Toes

[tiggymalvern]

I haven't bored you over the last couple of months with the ongoing details of my compressed nerves, and the tingling and slight numbness in my left thumb and hand, because the physio has all been terribly dull on the whole, and some days it's better and some days it's worse and most of the time I ignore it, but the one thing it never is is completely gone. In the last couple of weeks, I've had the same tingling up my right hand too on a few occasions, so I went back to my GP. He said it happens sometimes, that when you're working on getting a disc to slip back into place on the left, it can start bulging a bit on the right instead. He said the thing not to ignore would be if I started getting tingling in my feet, because that means something's compressing the spinal cord, and then I'd need an MRI to rule out a tumour and check on exactly what the discs are doing.

So guess what? Last night I woke up with vaguely numb and tingling feet. And now I have an appointment to be stuffed in a tube and bored silly next Wednesday morning. I hope whatever they find is too minor to bother with, because really, spinal surgery doesn't fit well with my plans for the rest of this year - I'm going to yaoi con, and I have two more birding trips, and all my usual days out, and we're getting the bathroom ripped out and completely redone. Where am I supposed to fit surgery in with all that?

The human spine is a deeply complicated and inconvenient thing. Can't I opt out of having one?

Comments

[ilo.livejournal.com]

Be a jellyfish! Do they have spines? *loses quietly at biology*

I hope you feel a bit better soon.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I think I'm coming back as a shark next time - cartilage and having your weight supported by the water, that's got to be the way to go!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Really, there can be no better reason for being an atheist than being human. Because if any god somewhere actually sat down and designed these weird body things, they did a stunningly poor job of it! I want v2.0 without all the bugs.

[rzyna.livejournal.com]

eeep! keep us posted and I hope everything works out for the best! *crosses fingers*

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Me too! I've avoided surgery this far in my life, drawing the line at the occasional tooth extraction and a couple of stitches at age four, and I'd like to keep it that way XD

[bigtitch.livejournal.com]

Dittoing the hope that it's completely trivial.
*hugs*

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I'm going to tell my feet they have to be good now, or I'll paint their toenails purple with yellow spots XD

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the spine is up there with the sinuses and tonsils disproving the theory of intelligent design... I hope this winds up being no big deal, you need to wear looser pants or something!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I always knew that sleeping in a G-string would come back to haunt me one day XD

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I wish.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Do you think we can them out for new ones any time soon?

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Doubt it. I learn more about neurology and neurosurgery every year and the more I learn the more convinced I am that none of us know a fucking thing. I hope everything turns out okay.

[tameiki.livejournal.com]

Tingling and slight numbness of any kind other than erotic pleasure is never a good thing! I hope it's only something trivial that they can fix easily.

My trigger finger itches, but I think that has more to do with the frustrating things and people I encountered at work today. XD

Make sure to keep us up to date on how your test results came out. I'll keep my fingers crossed for some good news.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

You get numbness in your erotic pleasure? That's not how it's supposed to work, dear ;-)

[tameiki.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I think it all depends on *how* the numbness was acquired, don't you think? ~_^

[teaforme.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounds scary. My fingers are crossed that it's nothing serious. In the meantime I hope it doesn't get any worse between now and MRI time.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Me too. I particularly despise it when I'm tired and weird things keep me awake!

[solo.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that's a pain. But it'll be good to know what's actually going on, rather than guessing around. Hope it isn't anything serious.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Well, my feet behaved normally last night, so hopefully the threat about the toenail polish is working XD With luck, they'll take a look at the MRI and find a way for me to adapt my physio routines rather than anything more drastic....

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I've sent enough dachshunds for spinal surgery to appreciate the potential benefits, but I'm still hoping I can survive without it for a while longer! The feet thing wore off late yesterday morning and hasn't been back to visit since, so I'm hopeful, but OTOH I'm aware that leaving things too long if they're only getting worse can mean a longer recovery afterwards. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....

I stopped anyrthing wrist-inclined in its tracks several years ago at the first hint of it, and got the ergonomics in early. I know how that felt and this isn't it, especially since if I hold my neck at the wrong angle I get tingling that goes way up beyond my wrist closer to my elbow. I try not to do that when I remember.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I know enough about all the health issues of all the breeds that if I ever get a dog, I'll pretty much stick with mongrels XD

Oh, I'll ignore many things and wait for them to go away, because most things, muscle and joint aches and so on, will fix themselves. The advantage I have is in having a pretty good idea what to ignore and what not.