First off, congrats to Josh, who won in his professional debut with a submission: armbar in the second round. He dominated the fight and, in spite of my obvious bias, he truly looked like he was in a different league than his opponent. Josh dominated the standup, but it was clear that his opponent would rather deal with that than Josh’s jiu-jitsu. After fight his way out of a triangle and an armbar in the first round, Josh wrapped him up tight to take an armbar from mount.
I can completely empathize (but in no way endorse or condone) with guys who become addicted to painkillers. It’s a terrible thing, and I’ve seen the damage it can do, but when my back spasms were at their worst, with shooting pain down to my toes in my right leg, I would have taken anything to make the pain stop.
But that said, I am on the good side of this and am getting better. During the day, I’m still not quite fully upright, but I’m walking without much pain and am not taking anything stronger than 600 mg of ibuprofen. Nights are a little more difficult. For some reason, laying down seems to put more pressure on my hip and over the course of the night, regardless of how I try to prop myself up with pillows in weird and inventive ways, my leg starts to just ache. While it’s no longer a piercing pain, it’s enough to wake me up several times. I’ve been getting about 4 hours of quality sleep per night, resting fitfully after that.
Hopefully, I’ll be back on the mats within a week or two, even if it’s just for warmups and technique. I can’t wait. I’ve been watching Purple Belt Requirements and thinking a lot about jiu jitsu. I’ve also been thinking about how I can keep this from happening again. Truth is, I probably can’t completely. I’ve had intermittent issues with my back over the years since I was 20 and first threw out my back in the Air Force. But there are things I can do to help minimize the risk. One of those is yoga. My wife wants me to join her for yoga, and I think I’ll finally relent.
Flexibility and core strength are what I need to focus on, with the big challenge being flexibility. My core can always stand to get stronger, but I’ll say that I’m light years ahead of where I was almost 3 years ago when I first started BJJ. But flexibility-wise, my hamstrings are still strung pretty tight. I’ve known for years, but my physical therapist reinforced a few days ago, that my hamstrings are tight enough that they pull on my lower back, likely causing many of the problems that I’m having. If I can improve flexibility through my hamstrings, I’ll likely improve my back and hip issues dramatically. So, there it is. Simple enough.
Hopefully, my next post will be good news, where I can enthusiastically describe what fun I had at class.
On a completely unrelated note, next week we’re getting a new HVAC system installed at our house. We’re having an 80% efficient furnace replaced with a high efficiency furnace/heat pump system with an air cleaner. Anyone with allergies will appreciate how excited I am about that air cleaning system, which is supposed to take up to 98% of pollen, dust, bacteria and all of that out of the air. While the prospect of having AC during the Summer is good, and saving over 30% on our energy bills during the Winter is dandy, it’s the air cleaning system that really has me looking forward to Tuesday.
prescription drugs are the #1 cause of death in the country. ask your local coroner. you have more pain when you lie down because you have disc problem.
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-Kay
I saw a few posts down that you were prescribed Vicodin. I had surgery on my tailbone several years ago and was on Vicodin for almost 2 months. You have to be careful when you stop taking it because I had noticeable withdrawal effects. If you weren't taking it for very long then you should be good.