cortisone shot

Let me tell you this. I hurt my back playing basketball about 18 months ago. I could barely get out of bed. I took a few days off from lifting went to the Chiropractor and iced my lower back. Then started training again a few weeks later.

I did this for about 6 months with no real help at all. When I spotted my partner on bench it pulled on my back when i lifted the bar to do biceps curls it hurt my back.

I felt like the pain would never go away but I still continued to train, not hard but to stop going to the gym was not an option for me at the time.

It is hard to explain to people who don't lift, but not going to the gym for a week will make most people training feel like crap.

Finally I could no longer bare the pain and scheduled an mri. When I say pain I mean eating 12 to 14 Advil a day with no relief in sight. Getting out of bed and breaking into a drenching sweat just attempting to put my socks on. Going outside to pull weeds would make me start crying when I stood up. Those of you who have had back pain know what I’m talking about. After speaking to the doctor about my mri he was surprised i was not in a wheel chair. I had severe inflammation in the lower spine as well as a narrow canal that the nerves pass through your pelvis to attach to your legs. I believe the term is stenosis. Might be a different spelling.

The doctors advice was to schedule a cortisone shot. He scheduled my shot the next month and prescribed a 2 month prescription of anti inflammatory. During the next month I read everything I could about the pros and cons of the shot.

During the next 4 weeks I never went to the gym once. I took the entire bottle of the medication as well. When I showed up at the office on the day of the shot I spoke with the physician and told him that I was healing and did he believe that if I continued taking the prescription and took some time to heal would the pain eventually go away?

His advice was that it would not cost anything to find out. After we both spoke about the situation for a long period of time we concluded that I should not get the shot. He informed that when I started to train again that I would indeed feel pain but that pain would be my back muscles regaining their strength.

During the next 2 months I just let my body heal. I tried to keep busy with regular activities like chores around the house and some minor yard work.

As time went by I obviously started to gain weight. It is hard to go from eating 7 meals a day to just a regular guy without some type of repercussions. I blew up too almost 260 lbs. I was a lean 212 before all this and at 6 foot 1 that’s a lot of weight.

Well I started to feel better around Christmas time so I called my partner and informed him I was probably going to start training again. He said he would meet me at the gym that night. I took it easy lifted somewhat light and felt like I was never going to be able to lift like I used. I was weak , I was fat and I was out of breath. I was embarrassed. My damn weight belt wouldn’t even fit around my waist. The next day I was sore but just the muscle soreness you get from lifting weights for the first time so the next day I returned. This was back day and we did a solid lift not hard core but a full 1 hour session no talking. The next morning I could barely get out of bed my back was in so much pain. I got up took a shower and started to loosen up. I was hurting but it was not the same pain and as the day went on I actually started to loosen up. I remember the doctor saying that I would be in some pain after I started to train again and boy was he right it was not an injured pain but enough to make me almost quit lifting.

Today it has been 2 straight months of training. My back still bothers me in the morning, stiff from a night in bed but nothing like it used to. I can now lift even more than when I did before I was injured and my partner tells me the extra weight gain is actually a blessing. He believes that after april when I attempt to lean out that I will come in at around 220’s instead of the 212 to 203 lbs I was before. I actually surprise myself with the gains Ive made in the last 2 months. I was a crying fat body that first day and now we laugh when we lift heavy. Im 235 now and leaning out every day without even doing much cardio.

My advice to you is try and wait the shot out and read others advice as well about the pros and cons for you. What I find strange about your story is that an mri showed nothing major. I could only recommend getting a shot if you can see the actually swelling of the disk pushing against the nerves in an mri and you have taken a lot of time off from training with no relief.

Good Luck