If It's Not One Thing....

This week with Caroline was challenging. She is doing very well academically and behaviorally in school, but she is being plagued by a new recurrence of severe back pain. She experienced her first problem with this last fall, in the middle of a run, when she abruptly quit and said her back hurt her terribly. I had to help her hobble back home, and one thing led to another, until she was in such severe pain that she landed in the hospital for three days. The docs did one test after another and couldn't find the reason for her pain. They released her and she was sent to a pain management doctor, who correctly diagnosed her with muscle spasms caused by a pelvic joint problem. He injected her trigger points with lidocaine, which helped a lot, and then she had physical therapy for a few months, which alleviated her pain by about 75%, not completely.

Because she left for the RTC in early May, and didn't really run all summer, her back issue went unnoticed, until she returned and started running again. She immediately had to stop and now can't do PE either because any physical activity sends her into spasms. You can only imagine how frustrating this is for her and for us. She can't run fall cross-country, and she has missed school because of the intense pain, only two weeks into the year.

We took her back to the pediatrician, but we ended up at the pain management doctor again, who again injected her with lidocaine, addressing the symptoms, but not the underlying problem. The physical therapist she is now seeing pointed out an abnormality in her spine about mid-way down, as did the massage therapist, and the physician assistant at the pain clinic. Now we are going to take her to a friend who is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon to get his opinion. I want to take her to a chiropractor, but that isn't covered by our insurance at all.

Poor kid! She comes back ready to jump into life and school and sports, and is immediately set back by this mystery problem! She is sick of this and so am I. Can't she just for once have smooth sailing for more than a week? Aaaargh! (It's National Talk Like a Pirate Day) Nothing seems fair for her.