Sometime back I revealed on Twitter that I am having serious problems walking. I have had back problems, which have got steadily worse, for more than twenty years that make walking unpleasant but, as long as I don't overdo it, can be mostly ignored. However, since about five or six months, whenever I start to walk my legs feel tired and heavy, a feeling which gets progressively worse as I continue to walk. A kilometre is about the limit of my mobility at the moment and at the end of that kilometre I'm fucked!

After various visits to doctors, my orthopaedist x-rayed my spine and thought he had detected a spinal stenosis in my lumbar vertebrae, which was confirmed by an MRI. In fact, I have a double stenosis. A stenosis is when a vertebra touches or puts pressure on the spinal column, causing problems with the nerves affected and the parts of the body those nerves serve. He referred me to the specialist spinal unit of a local hospital for conservative treatment, which consists of epidural injections and physiotherapy. 

MRI of a lumbar spinal stenosis L4-L5. L4-L5 antherolisthesis of grade I Source: Wikimedia Commons My double stenosis is between L3 and L5

The clinic's spinal specialist after examining and questioning me decided that my double stenosis didn't explain my symptoms, and sent me for more tests and MRIs of different parts of my spine. The end result was that they still don't know what is causing my symptoms, so they have decided to take me into hospital for more tests and for the conservative treatment initially suggested by my orthopaedist. 

I go into hospital at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, initially for three to five days for a series of epidural injections and further examination by orthopaedists, neurologists, internal medicine specialists, Old Uncle Thom Cobley and all. I have scheduled my normal weekly blog post for 10:00 am CEST on Wednesday; I have never done this before, so I hope it works. Theoretically I should be out of the clinic in time to write next weeks blog, but if I'm not I shall announce that here.