14 years of chronic pain....

So here goes. I have not always been the huge size that I am now, believe it or not, before I left school I was a size 10 - 12 in UK dress sizes. Then the joys of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) reared its ugly head, teamed up with loving drinking too much alcohol & good food meant that the weight piled on for me.

When I was 24 I became mum to my gorgeous son L who was born extremely premature at 27 weeks gestation & I was very lucky to survive the pregnancy as I had a condition called H.E.L.L.P. Syndrome which almost killed me.
Due to all of this, L is severely disabled with Cerebral Palsy and autism. He's a very loving lad who loves to live life to the full though.
I also have 2 other boys who are equally as gorgeous, C is 9 and has his own disabilities which are Hypochondroplasia (a form of Dwarfism) and a Thyroid disorder as well as severe asthma. D is my lively 3 year old who is the hardest work out of them all.

So this brings me onto the subject of pain. Ever since L was born I have been suffering with chronic & widespread pain across my lower back, hips & legs. I have been on strong painkillers for so many years now, I can't remember what life was like before them. Before D was born I was having great fun at my kickboxing club & managing to adapt the training to my own restrictions, to the extent that I worked my way up to getting my brown belt. I was on target to take my black belt grading within the next 9 months, when I found out the next week I discovered that I was pregnant with D. That put paid to my plans, as the pain levels soared massively during the pregnancy & never left me after he was born either.
These past 3 years have been the worst on my health as I have had difficulty even being able to walk at times. I have felt like giving up on trying to keep fit & healthy so many times, which would have been the easy option for me to do, but I am too stubborn for that I there are still things that I would like to achieve in life. So I kept going back to my doctor & asking for any other tests to be done, or any different pain medications that I could try. I was seen by a few different physiotherapists for short-term courses of treatment which worked for a few weeks then back to square one again.
My husband had a private healthcare package for himself through his work, so he chose to pay extra for me & the boys to be covered too. This is what has been the major turning point for me.
I was referred to a private physiotherapist who is currently working on massage & acupuncture to relieve the pain for me. She also referred me to an Orthopaedic Consultant to see what could be causing the pain. I had an MRI scan which showed that my spine is actually in pretty good condition with only minimal disc degeneration in relation to my age.
So I was offered Facet Joint steroid injections to the lumbar area of my spine. These were done under sedation & I had 6 injections done. I'm not going to lie & say that the injections were ok. No they hurt like hell once the local anaesthetic had worn off but now that I am 2 days on from having the procedure done, I have noticed the difference already. Before I had this done, it sounds strange but something that most women take for granted, I could not do without extreme pain. This was to be able to shave my legs in the bath, as it caused so much pain in my hips & I had very limited movement too.
Well, tonight I managed to shave my legs in the bath without too much pain. I have a much greater range of movement on my hips already. Still early days & I have to take it easy for the next few days to allow everything to heal.
My next plan will be to get back on with my DDPYOGA programme & to hopefully get myself down to a healthy weight. 
Once I figure out how to put photographs on here, I will be documenting my DDPYOGA journey though posts & photos.