I took a really serious blow to my spine in the army.

essentially i prolapsed some discs and damaged some bone.

Had the discs patched up and some bone removed.

While the surgery worked the scarring it left pushes on my sciatic and spinal nerves so badly that some days i cant walk, this can last for weeks. Other weeks ill be fine and can *just about* run for short distances ( i used to compete competitively track and field at school and college so not being able to run really bugs me. )

Right now i cant even sit down withouth being in pain and it sucks.

Im on oxycontin and valium daily (its why my posts often have typos, it can be hard to think through). I was having a great time playing that 600 point epic game but at times i had to lie on the floor for five mins as i just could not sit up any longer.

Im well hacked off at the mo as im stuck in bed (and still hurting) for about the third day in a row.

Anyone else have mobility issues on here... legs eh, you dont appreciate em til you cant use em

Yes, you do not appreciate little things like to seat without pain, be able to dress yourself or similar...

I am ok, but when I was 19 a drunken SoB hit my car, broken leg,.and neck damage. But I was a lycky man, and 10 moths later I was 100% ok. But it was not easy.

I am sorry man. But do not despair. Who knows what the doctors could do in a couple of years. Some fights are won with machineguns, other just saying " I can walk 100 mts now, 200, next week..."

CARRY ON

While it isn't anything as severe and I'm not technically disabled, Achilles Tendonitis makes walking/sitting/anything except not moving painful sometimes. My job requires me to be on my feet For 4-5 hours at a time. When I first got it I couldn't walk for 2 & 1/2 weeks without crutches. Nothing like realising you can't carry a glass of water around the house to make you appreciate the use of your legs.

Nothing quite so major or drastic as others, but I have suffered 13 diagnosed concussions.

Youth sports, clumsiness and (some stupid and 2 major) accidents have left me with a 20% hearing loss in my left ear , no sense of smell and occasional aphasia. I also get dizzy now from almost any head impact.

My doctor is worried about CET but there is nothing that can really be done about that.

The list of my injuries from soccer, football, wrestling, fencing and baseball from little league through college is huge.

I have broken both patella for example.

Not disabled, no. But after spending the best part of last week in hospital after suffering a suspected heart attack I can sympathise with the mobility issues. I'm now on medication while they look into what's wrong and I'm very concious of my body and what it can and can't do at the moment. I've gone from happily walking to and from work and spending eight hours a day on my feet to struggling to walk the dog.

Worst thing is I'm not allowed to play out with my spaceships this weekend as (quite rightly if I'm honest) the wife isn't happy with me getting on the train to attend a tournament I was due to play in!

Sucks doesnt it.

The stupid thing is i can be fine one day then unable to move my legs for weeks.

I cant drive anymore as i sometimes cant feel my left leg (we have a stick shift car) and when its bad the amount of painkillers im on make thinking and typing very hard.

I hate being on oxycontin, its poisonous stuff but without it im utterly crippled. With it I can have a fairly normal life unless things get very bad.

Im pretty sure this is inflamed nerves again in my l4/l5 area, ive had a really stressful few months and ive had to be strong physically and mentally for others for a while, I think its like delayed stress.

Not a mobility disability, but my migraines can trigger a period of transitory aphasia. Imagine being able to think and reason normally, but every time you speak you make random noises. However to me it sounds like normal speech, so I stand there waiting for a response as my bewildered victim tries to sort out my speaking in tongues.

Wow, that sounds incredibly frustrating.

I once took something at a party when i was a stupid teenager that made that happen.

I thought i was saying really funny clever stuff but what was actually coming out was slurring nonesense

Im not making light of your condition just empathising as i know that it was really really unpleasant when i had it happen to me through 'bad life choices'. I'd hate to have that happen to me with no warning or control.

Do you sound a little like some deaf people who are unaware of the end result of he sounds they are trying to shape?

Ey Gadge, if you have not, talk your doctor about the posibility to work your muscles in.water. That worked miracles on me, and perhaps a stronger muscle can help your damaged spine. It is possible to build your body in the pool, but first ask advice. Ciatic pain is hell, and take this into account.

yeah swimming is very good for me, i just hate swimming.

Might have to bite the bullet and just do it though.

I like the sea, not the swimming pools. But to swim.was fundamental to.recover full mobility, so it was a simple.choice. And there were a full load of.people with damaged spines in that swimming club. Go ahead !!!

Ditto, i hate swimming pools.

Love swimming in seas and rivers etc but cant stand sterile bleached chlorinated pools with baby piss in them and someone old plaster floating about

Nowhere near disabled, but i got a bit of a trick knee. Some stupid work accident. Didn't had to go to the hospital but when for weeks afterwards you suddenly get painfull tingling sensation and a sense of heat in your leg... That's not right is it?

Now the knee is pretty much ok, can still run and walk, but if the weather is right and i've been standing all day at work, and it's quiet my knee will make the sound of a ratchet joint when i walk.

I understand. It's part of why I stay away from certain things as well!

It can be very defeating. Especially at work. If I can focus for about five seconds on every word I can generally get them out. Generally though I can still write, so I go with that approach. Sadly it's tied in with my migraines, so not only can I not talk during the aroa phase, but everything is strobbing lights and pain after. I've had my manager come to find me fetal under the drafting table, in a futile attempt to get away from the light...

I don't believe it's like a deaf person, though I haven't really heard it myself. It's a dissociative disorder. I often don't know it's happening at first. If I try and say "I have a problem " but the part of my brain responsible for turning thoughts into speech no longer understands the relationship between words and meanings. What comes out is a mixture of mumbling and jumbled words. Sometimes new words too.

Manic-depressive illness. Or as its colloquially known, bipolar disorder.

Some days, I'm going a thousand miles an hour and can't slow down. Other days, my mind is so debilitated that nothing moves me at all. My moods are *completely* out of whack on my own and if it were not for medications (it took six years to find a combination that works) and counseling, there would be no managing this at all. And sometimes it's still not enough.

There are times of utter sadness that I can't break out of. A lot of those times, I'm curled up on the sofa for days, no feeling apart from the meaningless of existence. Other times find me doing irrational things, like going out to Wal-Mart at 1 in the morning to buy gallons of Tabasco sauce... because it made sense at the time. Another evening, I went on a binge on eBay, buying LEGO minifigs, because I wanted a chorus of them next to my computer.

It sounds funny. Except it isn't.

It's not as bad as it used to be. The extreme episodes of anger have mostly become under control... a lot. A lot of manic symptoms remain though. And often the depression seems as bad as ever.

There is a reason why too many manic-depressives commit suicide. I know. Because I've been on the edge of that, more than once.

Bipolar disorder has cost me jobs. It has cost me some wonderful opportunities. A year ago it cost me *thousands* of dollars and a good reputation as a freelance writer, because I couldn't write a word for *weeks* because of depression. It has cost me friendships. And it cost me a marriage. Again, that happens all too often. Of marriages involving a partner who is bipolar, more than 90% end in failure.

Mental illness isn't something that someone can "stop being" on their own. It is a real disease, and we are discovering now how much it has a biological and even a genetic basis.

I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. Bipolar disorder, left unattended to, makes life a living hell.

Thankfully, I'm managing it now. And every day seems to find me managing it even more. There'll never be any real getting rid of this, I'll always be trying to stay one step ahead of it (and failing at times) but it's not the plague of my existence that it used to be.

I'm writing a book now, have been for almost a year, about what it is to be manic-depressive. Hopefully it will be finished soon. For one thing, I want to shop it around to agents.

For another, when I started this I took a vow to play no X-Wing until the book was done. It's been almost a year... and I direly want to play X-Wing again

Not enough people realize that depression is a serious medical disorder, and not an issue of morale.

Telling someone with depression to stop being depressed is like telling some with lupus to stop having lupus.

The intro to this is my favorite analogy for depression.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html?m=1

Yeah and from what i have heard, there are diferent "types" of bipolar, and meds that help against one type will do nothing against another type. So you really need a doc who knows whats doing, otherwise you end up taking tons of meds and you start feeling worse because non of these pills are working...

I totally sympathise with you knightshift.

My wife has bipolar and we usually manage it with lithium and quitiapine but we were trying for kids recently so she came off lithium and had a terrible attack of it.

Thats why i was having such a hard month recently.

When sian is 'high' on a manic upswing she can believe quite dangerous things (like she has personal super powrs, can save the world etc etc), when shes back on the downside shes so low shes a danger to hersef too.

I really wish i could do *anything* to stop her having 'episodes'. They tend to happen about once every four years and they are terrifying when the do as at the highest and lowest points shes like a totally diffferent person that i barely recognise.

I cant go into detail cos its her business but the last few weeks have been 'scary' to say the least.

During her last episode i was unable to cope with it at home and keep her safe so she had to stay with professionals.

During that period we found 'mindfulness' adult colouring books helped no end. We both scoffed at the idea but Sian still uses them as she finds it helps her keep intrusive thoughts about self harm out of her head.

As all shields says mental illness is a proper illness but unfortunately their is a stupid stigma about it. If my wife as off work for a month with a chest infection or a broken leg, i'd have loads of people trying to help or being kind. If shes off work for a month because she believes 'radiation from the crab nebula is giving her super powers and she just needs to figure out the equation that will help her transform this energy into a world saving power source (sounds hillarious, trut me its not hen every clean surface has equations scribbled on it that are actually gibberish) than people think shes 'wacko' or 'mental' and assume shes going to want to stab them rather than calmly talking her down from these episodes (the radiation thing happened about 7 years ago btw)

When she was off work we said she'd had an 'acute illness and needed a short hospital stay' as we didnt want it being office gossip. It got out soemohow anyway so now my wife is being an adovcate for mental health awareness and saying 'yep, i spent a week or so recovering on a psych ward...so what?'

I think 1 in 4 people in the UK has a mental health issue but no one feels they can tell anyone withouth being ridiculed.

My thoughts with you, i dont know it myself as something to suffer from but i support and care for someone who gets it very badly.

I've had depression myslef but my depression is *always* situational, never a chemical imbalance.

For example when i was about 24 i'd wrecked my back in the infantry, my career path as an officer ended (well as a soldier full stop), my father had died, my mum was an alcoholic, my dog had died, we were losing the family home and my girlfriend and i had broken up (honestly, most of all of that at all at once). I'd started drinking and doing a few other silly things i wont detail. I was VERY depressed, enough to seriously have a go at 'calling it a day' but that was all situational, i just couldnt cope with the incredibly crappy cards in my hand.

Now that was horrible enough.

But to feel like that, to be in so much despair withouth any *reason* thats a terrible thing for people to suffer from.

The only thing that kept me alive then was knowing that it was 'situational' and i could 'get a grip' and pull myself out of it.

If it was a chemical imbalance i dont kno if i i could have.

Not enough people realize that depression is a serious medical disorder, and not an issue of morale.

Telling someone with depression to stop being depressed is like telling some with lupus to stop having lupus.

The intro to this is my favorite analogy for depression.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html?m=1

All Shields,

I think my wife has shown my that before, she loves that website (and XKCD).

We both adore the 'daft dog' on that site as well.

Oh and eveyone, thanks for sharing you experiences with me. Its good to know we *can* all get by an get better, even if its bad then talking about it helps a bit.

When i made my cryptic posts a while back on off topic. I was because my wife going into residential mental health care was just stessing the hell out of me and I was really not saying much about it. now she is out of there and her work know she doesnt mind me talking about it openly

Before though i was not sure i had the right to say anything

I was doing vehicle extrication training out of an old deuce and a half as a medic. Had a seriously overweight Guardsman as a patient (cause the Army always has to choose the fattest guy for you to carry). He was probably about 350 lbs with body armor on and fell out of the cab on me. I used to be 6 foot but lost an inch, and 2 deployments in body armor made things worse. Got to the point where a random cough or sneeze or just standing up could cause my back to lock up and I could barely hobble.

I had my first spinal surgery at age 31 and it rectified most of the lower back issues. Wear and tear still give me constant pain and stiffness in my lower and mid back. A 4 car pileup on the interstate also brought back some of the lower back issues. Can't really afford a specialist, so I use the VA. The VA seems content to give me Naproxen for the rest of my life and call it good.

I can empathise.

I was training to be an infantry platoon commander at the time.

My battalion had rotated from 'armoured' to 'light role'.

You'd think 'light' sounds easy , its not it 'bridging weight' for the purpose of knowing where you can move as a battalion.

In reality it means you carry *everything*

With my normal kit, rifle ammo and then everything else you're expected to carry on top of that i must have easily been carrying my own bodyweight.

This pic was taken *before* we drew weapons and ammunition and before body armour and helmets were on, we were just moving our 'personal kit' from the barracks to the motor pool!

Im centre back in this pic

All we're carrying at this point is water, rations, spare clothing and NBC kit (it was June but we were on a course so they make you pack stuff like your padded thermal winter suit liner and other stuff you're clerly not going to need)

We then had to draw rifles (5kg loaded) , about 600 rounds of ammo, mortar rounds, 250round belts for the GPMG and between us two 12kg light anti tank weapons. Then i think our helmets must have been about 3kg and the body armour at least 4kg.

Humping that amount about wrecked my back before the injury made it a lot worse.

I feel with you all.

I myself have a borderline personality disorder, accompanied by reccurent major depressions and panic attacks.

It can really impair your regular life.

I don't want to go into detail too much.

But involving myself a lot with my favourite Star Wars FFG games and reading a lot of great comments by awesome guys here is helping me, especially druing downtimes.

I normally don't feel like I have something to contribute, so I'm reading, not writing, but this time I felt compelled to do it.

Nurgle please do contribute. Threads like this in off topic are incredibly healthy i think.

My wife was recently in hospital with a young girl with BPD and it caused her no end of heartache

The thing i hate is that despite 1 in 4 people in the UK having some mental health issues in their life its still got a massive stigma attachd to it. people say stupid and hurtful things.

Its like 100s of times more likely someone will have depression, or BPD or bi polar but no ones talks about it.

Its a shame really as a lot of anxiety would be relieved just knowing people were not going to take the piss or avoid you if you said 'sometimes i have these really bad days and i feel like such and such...'

As i think i've said i occasioanlly get bouts of long lasting depression but its situational and usually me feeling dragged down by my spinal injuy in the times i cant walk but i always know these periods will end

I used to have 'get a f**king grip' gadge on a note on a fridge magnet to remind myself when i made my morning cup of tea that i'd been through worse, this *will* end, i i will feel better and i *can* cope.

Hang in there fella and if you ever want to send a sympathetic stranger a PM to chat about how you feel... well you know where to find me:)

Mild Cerebral Palsy effecting all four limbs but worse on my left side (I can barely bend my left leg so I can walk but running or anything depending on reflexes is out for me.) Curve in my spine which is slowly getting worse so I'm only supposed to lift 5 lbs. Plus I have type one diabetes and my problems with fine motor skills mean I have incredible difficulty taking care of that. I believe I I had Tendonitis in my left ankle after several surgeries on that tendon but they were able to remove the lump.

Ouch, that sounds tough man.

I had curvature of my spine after the damage was done to my back but the surgery corrected it. I did have to wear a bloody surgical corset for six months though while it all healed.

Would a surgical corset work for you? I mean they are not cool and a bit uncomfy but it did help me keep good posture while i was reocvering.