Spondylitis Association of America Forums General Discussion Military & Veterans Board Not yet sure what is going on

About 10 months ago I hurt my back while doing two boat towing training at the search and rescue station I work at. At first I thought I just pulled a muscle so I went up to our medical facility to check. The doctor said to take a few days to rest my back and to take some asprin, and to come back in a few days to follow up.
I went back and the pain did not subside at all, the pain was now spreading from the left tip of the shoulder blade down the left side and across the lower back to the right side. The pain was not just a pulled muscle pain but I was also feeling muscle spasms and moterate lower back pain. My doctor refered me to physical therapy. I was in physical therapy for about 3 months with the only thing that happend was more pain and I was able to strech my hamstrings. The physical therapist was completely baffled on what was going on. She noticed that I had extrem weakness underneath my shoulder blades and after doing the exercises for so long they were still not getting any stronger.
After physical therapy was done with my doctor started to dig a little deeper and found that I have a genetic disorder that I had less testorone growing up. She also found that I could have a heart murmum. I was able to go to Madigan Army Center in WA to see if they could figure out what was going on. Nothing was found, they said welcome to 50% of americans with back pain and I would have to deal with it. The geneticist I saw explained the disorder and also siad that it sound not contribute to the pain I was having. I went back to Ketchikan were my doctor tested for everything; lime disease, all th forms of muscle dystrophy, I had bone scans, mri, xray, and I even saw a nueroligist with everything coming back to nothing wrong.
At this point it was not just back pain any more it was effecting my entire left side; neck, shoulder, arm, hand, knee, hip, foot, and it was exterem pain when i do anything there is no relief. I'm now 5 months into a medical board which is slow and it seems like i'm in the dark about everything. They keep telling me that I will be either on the TDL or PDL and they don't even have any Diagnosis besides a back ache.
If anyone has any suggestion I would really appricate your response.

I was reading through the statment above and I just what to list all my symtoms. severe back pain form just below my left shoulder blade down to my butt and across to the right, also stiffness and numbness and tingling into my hips. My neck feels like I can only move it 2-3 inches left or right (really stiff), I have numbness and tingling into both shoulders and down into the elbow and countinueing down into my hands. I have severe tremers in my hands and sometimes I can't grab things because my hand completely lock into a cupping postion. Every day I wake up my joints pop and snap like there out of place, some hurt alot both others not at all. In my hips sometimes it feels like they pop out of place and its difficult to walk and put pressure on it. I have numbness and tingling from my hips into the back of my knees, then it splits and seems that one goes into the top of my foot and one goes into my heal. My knee tend to swell if I do stairs. Every where I have mentioned I have severe muscle spasms all day with no relief. I'm 21 years old.
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so sorry to hear you are in such bad shape! keep on the docs to get you diagnosed and make sure you get COPIES of ALL your medical records..

complain...
complain...
complain...

hopefully someone else here will have more advise for you...

thanks for the post Trudi! I won't give up its all i got right now, being in the military.

make sure you get a good rep too before signing any papers for med boards. I got scr3wed by signing mine without a real diagnosis of my problems....I was in pain and wanted to get out at the time and didn't care or even think of any future ramifications that piece of paper would mean later in life...

I went to the doc the other day because I was having another crazy symtom. It start about a week before and I would just be relaxing in a chair or in a sitting postion and after about 30 minuties or so I would try to get up I could not walk I would be bend over and could only take shuffle steps. The doc told me that I was over weight and that not only this pain was coming from that but all of it was. Can you believe that! I'm just at a lost for words at tis point in time, advise would be helpfull thanks.

Hey Everyone,
Well the the same old things are happening here in ketch. It's been just under 6 months into my medical board and there still dragging there feet. It's driving me insane. It started with the sector comand wich is in charge of our station. My medical package sat on the Capt. desk for two months just to get a endosement and then be sent to the District, were the Admiral had to sign in. It was only at District for a week though but the retarted thing they did was they sent they unfinished package to headquaters after that. Once it got there they to one look at it and made the nessesary phone calls to get the ball rolling. (thank god for good yeoman) The package was sent back to ketchikan on the 8th on Feb as I thought.... but I was wrong again being that it's Alaska the mail is not the fastest in the world, after a week with DHL it was not here I start to look in to it thourghly and it didn't get sent! Once the package was sent it got here in two days but was hidden on base at the warehouse for three days. It's like the whole world is against me or something.
Anyways I got the package and come to fine out that the whole time it was in sector/district to get an endosement they just signed off on my commanding officer's.
I Mean ....... what can I say about that what a waste of time.
The package is now put togeather and being sent to headquaters so we will see what happens right. Thanks for listening and sorry for rambling on and on.
Brian

it's all the same... hurry up & wait!

hang in there! it will soon be over!

Heres an update on the old situation. There not sure what was going on so, they sent me for a psych eval and it came back as conversion disorder. I find this had to believe because the dr said he couldn't believe they sent me for the eval in the first place. I had a normal life growing up and nothing to suggest the disorder besides the fact that they can't figure out what is causing the pain. I'm suppose to hear what they are going to rate me with by the end of the week, so we will see right. Any suggestions on what I sould do? Is this disorder going to mess up my civilan life, with getting a job?

Pardon the intrusion as I am not in the military or a veteran but it sounds like another case of "we don't have a clue so you must be mental" to me. An oldy but a goody. I hope you find a cause for all your pain.