The absurdness of some dr's offices...

[Cirobi]

Just a random thought, Laid up Doc, you mentioned using a tennis ball for some of your trigger point issues and it reminded me of a friend who uses a field hockey ball for hard to reach massage areas. She doesn't have spine issues, but uses it after a good workout at her fitness facility if her muscles are too tight. She said she uses it because it's made of harder material and she gets better results. A tennis ball may be too squishy for those spots you said need a needle to relieve. Have you tried anything harder than a tennis ball? Even a door knob might help.

[laid up doc]

i have a foam roller around here somewhere - just moved and can't unpack all of the boxes it is SO painful sometimes though!!

the tennis ball does pretty well when i use it against a hard surface. my physical therapist did some good elbow work on me today, i think that's helped some.

unfortunately, my muscle pain progression that i had before and had resolved after the biacuplasty just keeps on marching... paraspinous -> glute -> quadratus -> now piriformis again.

counting the days.... at least the progression should begin to reverse after surgery. the consensus is that the disc pain and change in biomechanics drive all of the muscle stuff. the few months of relief i had after the biacuplasty proved that. now i gotta do it alll over again - not fun at all.

AND my travel partner is being flaky... having to scramble a bit... stress doesn't help!!!