HGH and ruptured disks

[GSXRvi6]

I have ruptures at C6/7, C5/6, and C4/5 with a bulge at C3/4.

I go for cortisone injections soon, with the meds I have been on I've watched all of my gains just melt away, I'm losing years of work in a blink of an eye.

The first doctors approach is to get the disks to shrink using cortisone then let them heal on their own, I'm thinking of running 200mg/wk of test to help keep some muscle while my body melts into a bag of jello and then throwing in HGH to help speed recovery of my disks. Working out is not an option for a while and I may end up in surgery.

thoughts on the HGH?

[lovbyts]

I would not do the cortizone shots if it was me. Ive had a few epi dural steroid injections for bulging and ruptured disk in the past. Didnt help in the least and cortizone will eventually damage the tendons and surrounding tissue.

I would do a LOT of treatment with ice and try decompression before cortizone injections. You have to do the ice right and frequently or it wont help much.

FDA warns of risks to cortisone injections in the spine - LA Times

Bristol-Myers Warning Ignored on Steroid Shots Tied to Deaths - Bloomberg

I would not take testosterone or any aas thinking it will speed up healing or help muscle loss especially if you are not able to train. You are only putting your natural test at risk unless you are already on TRT and if not you may need it by the time you are done, not a good thing.

As for the HGH, that I would do but ONLY if I could get it via RX. I would not risk trying to find a good source online. 99% of what is out there is fake and 90% of the people who claim they have gotten good HGH via online have no idea what they are talking about and just wont admit they wasted their money.

[GSXRvi6]

I'm currently on TRT and have already done one cortisone injection. My C6-7 was so bad I was unable to do much of anything and the amount of drugs I have been taking just to function had to be melting my liver and it made my brain mush.

I've already upped my TRT dose a little bit and I'm throwing some anavar on top for the hell of it. I may be able to get my hands on legit HGH but the price is out of this world, if I thought it would help I would do it, if it's not, I don't want to waste my money.

[testluva]

I have had a similar experience. Anavar at 50mg, TRT, HGH and added some NPP worked great for me. My physical therapist couldn't believe how fast I recovered.

[Chicagotarsier]

Anavar will help stabilize the muscles around the spine.
Deca will build the disc synoval fluid.
Test will cause healing along with HgH.

The thing with HgH it takes 6-months use before it is a factor from may reports. The Deca and Anavar are gold for it.

[Times Roman]

instead of the hgh, you might consider TB500. it's a fraction the cost of HGH, and can run you a mere hundred or two for a six week healing cycle. maybe longer due to severity of disc rupture. to find out more, follow the link in my signature for the TB....

[GSXRvi6]

Well I'm going under the knife so I'll be down for 6 months for the bones to fuse... I can kiss my gains good bye so it doesn't matter at this point.

I did the Cortisone injection and shit got worse

[lovbyts]

Well I'm going under the knife so I'll be down for 6 months for the bones to fuse... I can kiss my gains good bye so it doesn't matter at this point.

I did the Cortisone injection and shit got worse

I told you...
Why are they going to fuse it? I sure would not want that done. I have had 2 surgeries but they could not be avoided. If I had any other option I would have taken it but there was not and i was happy with the outcome but I would not do fusion.

Dont worry about the gains, they will come back. I have had plenty of setbacks. They are just road-bumps in life.

Best of luck

[GSXRvi6]

The surgery is done, C5-7 fused, it will take 6 months to fully heal (to become fused)

everywhere I turned everyone had their own opinion on what I should and should not do, there were groups saying do surgery, groups saying don't let anyone touch you, some saying try laser, some saying do physical therapy - in the end everyone had their own way to "fix" me. I didn't want surgery, I wanted a magic pill.

In the end I was in so much pain for so many weeks and on so many drugs, I was worried about losing my job. I hear some people talk about arm pain, tingling, numbness, what I had was well beyond that. I couldn't use a keyboard, drive, half the time I laid on the floor in a fetal position doped up crying, my life was over.

The way I saw it, I had absolutely nothing to lose after the shot made it worse, it was go under the knife or eat a bullet - endless debilitating pain for weeks is something that can really only be understood when experienced, I was showing 0 improvement over time (two months of pure hell and my condition actually declined).

My body has melted away, I've lost all of my weight room gains and then some, I look like a bag of fat, weeks of not eating, taking hard hard drugs (some of which on their own speed up muscle atrophy by themselves) has taken it's toll on my body.

After the surgery about the only thing I could eat was ice cream, and popsicle and we all know how great that stuff is for building and keeping lean muscle mass.

My left arm has atrophied visibly compared to my right, it's shockingly smaller, especially the tricep, I was told that would happen with severe nerve pinches and they were not shitting me.

The rupture pinched off the root nerve in the foremiel (spell)? opening so it was pinched off bad, on top of that the disk completely dried out and pieces of the debris traveled down the nerve causing even more problems, therefore alternative treatments like physical therapy would have done jack squat for me, from what I have read the only "fix" for disk debris is removal.

I'm now 100% pain free in my left arm but some numbness and tingling remain, I don't know how well my motor control is yet, doc says I may never get everything back only time will tell. I can't lift anything over 10lbs for a very long time... but everything I had is gone, the only hint of anything left from what I was is my quads but they look like they have been vacuumed down.

I'm having serious withdraws coming off the drugs, I've been on opiates for so long I knew this was coming. I'm so weak my wife has to do almost everything for me, I can't even bath myself, part of that is the lack of eating and coming off these wicked drugs. Everyone keeps telling me to take them but I'm like screw that sooner I get this shit out of my body the sooner I can get back to normal, I'd rather deal with tolerable levels of pain than Oxycontin morphine and that garbage. I hate that shit so bad, the nurses in the hospital kept telling me to hit my pain button (that gives morphine) and I refused, they had to nag the hell out of me and talk me into it, I have no idea how many tubes of that shit I shot into myself, I would guess a lot by the way I feel.

My goal is to just survive the next 30 days, the damn headaches, stomach issues, inability to sleep, the pain... then I have 5 months of leaning up to do, I will only be allowed to do cardio (aka treadmill) until I'm fully fused. I'm going to use HGH, TEST, Anavar (on TRT already) and some other things to help speed the healing - low doses.

After I'm fully fused I'll have to get my body balanced again before I can really lift, my left side is so melted compared to my right it will take a while to get balanced before I can really do anything...

So here is to my setback, my suffering, but instead of every day waking up wondering how much pain I will be in, I wake up wondering how much improvement I will have. Suffering knowing that every day brings improvement is way better than dreading each morning knowing that it'll another day of rolling around on the floor just waiting to die.

My only regret about my surgery is not doing it sooner.

It sucks, bad, but it doesn't suck as bad as it sucked the day before, and the day before that.

Never givin up damn it

[zempey]

You have a good outlook, stay positive it will get better. I had back surgery in 01 from an injury in 98, it was a brutal 6 months of pain before it started to ease up. I was in really good shape and 29 years old so the doctors just figured I wanted time off work so they blew me off. I couldn't even put my own sock or shoes on but they refused to do any further testing (welcome to Canadian health care) so I had to get another doctor and took for ever to get it figured out. I had a twisting injury at work L4-L5 to the right and L5-S1 to the left causing nerve damage in my lower legs, different problem on both sides. It took them so long to get their shit together that the nerve damage is permanent, it took years to walk somewhat normal and I still have pain in my legs and back from time to time. It will get better, you WILL get your gains back, your body will adapt to the surgery and become efficient with its bio mechanics, just don't give up. I was squatting 550 for reps and 1400+ on the leg press a few years after my surgery, that was basically natural, I did one bottle of finaplex in a two year period while in that phase of my training life. I didn't want surgery either but couldn't take it anymore, the flare ups and weeks at a time laid up. Take it one day at a time, but I pushed myself a lot harder than the doctors said I could, they have no idea what kind of machines us meatheads can become and how determined we can be to get back to our former glory. Hope your recovery is quick and as pain free as it can be, just wanted to share a story to show you are not alone.

[GSXRvi6]

Alright well I'm looking at a 6 month long deal here before I can "really" lift soooo

TRT - upping my dose a bit, probably go to 150mg per week rather than my normal 100
HGH - 2-3 IU at bedtime
Deca - (cause I have it and this is a long term thing) 50mg / week
Anavar - 40mg/day but I have biomex, I think the shit is way under dosed or is completely fake, legit shit takes me about a month to get so this will have to do for now.

I have NPP but want to save it for when I'm ready to rebuild

researching TB500 now

Soon as I am cleared to exercise (hopefully one month) I'm going to cut calories and do as much cardio as my body will allow.

Today I drank my workout shake for the hell of it (full of vitamins and goodness) - holy crap I feel so much better getting nutrients back in me

[GSXRvi6]

48 days post op running slightly higher test, HGH, TB500 and low dose Deca along with taking extra calcium, magnesium etc.

My incision is healing fast, and I have been free from my collar for about 18 days.

I'm back in the gym doing light weight and high reps, for example 70lbs lat pull down 40 reps for 4 sets, right now for me it's more about just activating muscles that have been dormant for 3+ months. I'm doing lateral raises with only 5lb dumbells, curls with a 20lbs straight bar etc. I "feel" good enough I want to push it but I know I can't.

My left side is a lot weaker than my right, it's going to take a long time to get it balanced back out.

My biggest issues right now, the lack of head movement from stiff muscles in my neck - when I move my head to it's limits my neck starts to hurt pretty bad, stretching out these screwed up muscles is a slow process, and I can feel the anterior plate against my throat, I guess it's just something I have to get used to.

I'm struggling with my diet, I can't workout like I want to in order to burn calories and without my physical activities I'm feeling kind of down so junk food is that much more attractive

I've noticed that the day or two before a nerve "wakes up" I have lots of pain, I had a lot of pain in my fingers again then after a couple of days the feeling came back without the pain, I have experienced the same process in my forearm and tricep, at this point nerve wise I'll say I"m 90% better.

[Red Bastard]

Congratulations on being back at it, carefully!
Best wishes, for a continued recovery!!

[PistolPete33]

I feel your pain. I had a hip replacement surgery 3 years ago and it was terrible. i know exactly what it's like living in pain 24/7 and not being able to do anything at all. I had a 1 year recovery where I was not allowed to do much of anything. I lost almost all of my gain fairly quickly but I was no longer living in pain. 3 years later I'm not 100% and I never will be but I've got my weight back and I feel pretty good. The hip still gives me trouble but not like it did before. You'll get there but remember it's a marathon not a sprint.

[Ashop]

I have ruptures at C6/7, C5/6, and C4/5 with a bulge at C3/4.

I go for cortisone injections soon, with the meds I have been on I've watched all of my gains just melt away, I'm losing years of work in a blink of an eye.

The first doctors approach is to get the disks to shrink using cortisone then let them heal on their own, I'm thinking of running 200mg/wk of test to help keep some muscle while my body melts into a bag of jello and then throwing in HGH to help speed recovery of my disks. Working out is not an option for a while and I may end up in surgery.

thoughts on the HGH?

Its not going to cure you but HGH can be beneficial in many ways.

[lovbyts]

Glad to hear things are looking up and you are doing better. It would have been nice if they could have gone in and cleaned things up without fusing the discs but thats neither here or there now. Hopefully you wont loose to much ROM.

I know all about the nerve damage and atrophy as well as severe pain. For me it was when I ruptured L5/S1 and was in so much pain it was impossible for me to even consider driving. I could barely walk from the bedroom to the kitchen without passing out and had to lay on the floor for hours after to just recover. I could not even sit up long enough to take a sh*t so you can only imagine how much fun that was.

Surgery was a life saver for me literally. No way I could have survived or wanted to in that pain. It's also amazing how much muscle mass you can loose in just a couple of weeks due to nerve damage. I went from always having pretty decent legs and good calves without working them to serious chicken legs and no calves. It took months before I could even raise up on my tip toes but the pain was gone after surgery.

They wanted to fuse my back also since I had already had surgery on L3 & L4 2 years prior but I said no and I'm glad I did.

Best of luck on the recovery and what ever you do dont push it.

[bullshark99]

^^^^yep, short version I refused the back fusion also! blew my 3rd disc out last march, can totally relate to a lot of what has been said. My leg still isn't right, atrophy, numbness, ect....
GSX, good job man! Surgery takes courage and rehab is frustrating but I suspect in time you will be back. As said above, just don't be foolish and push to hard when your body tells you not to.....last thing you need is a setback at this stage in the game.

[Daniel h]

Rfa works the best on those disc other than surgery.

[GSXRvi6]

What is Rfa?

My disks were removed, my recovery time is based on the bones growing together, so I'm not trying to heal my disks, I'm trying to speed up the rate of bone growth.

[helio8]

Tb500
HGH
IGF

Nondefatted liver powder
Glucosamine with MSM 3xday
Beef Gelatin powder 3xday

I have repurted vertebrae, I take this stuff and can still do squats and cleans without any pain

[GSXRvi6]

I think I am around 111 days out now, something like that.

I've had insane pain in my neck itself lately, all of the muscles are awake and wanting to go but I'm not fused, doc said I'm about 50% fused after my checkup roughly 3 months out but I'm bending the plate in my neck, that puts stress on the screws into he bone and doesn't feel that great - doc didn't' seam concerned about it, told me it was normal to pop a pill (figures) and it will go away after fusion completes.

Some of my atrophied muscles are coming back nicely, my left bicep, forearm, left delts, trap, they are all weaker and smaller still but they are responding to what limited training I can do.

When I first blew up that nerve I could barely bench the bar 3 times (left side of my body didn't work) I can now put up 135 a few clean times... I have mixed feelings about that, it's way more than the bar, but the last time I was that weak was.. hell... I was still in middle school, but it's way better than the bar. When I start to fatigue the left side won't lock out - left tricep is just trash.

The long head of my left tricep is completely gone and not responding to training, this greatly affects the thickness of my left arm and several of my workout movements - I'm fearful the nerve may be dead, it's the only muscle not responding to training.

About the only thing really doing well is my legs but I'm still limited, as soon as I start to "push" I start to tense muscles in my upper body and I have to stop, anything that puts any form of stress on my neck muscles even from just tensing up I try to avoid. I also don't want to load that much weight up onto squat, traps connect up into the neck and all so probably not a good idea to go nuts with it.

When I do HGH in the morning, sometimes shortly after I do it the damaged nerve in my left arm tingles like it did back before my surgery...not sure what's up with that.

I've been doing 2mg/wk of TB500 along with my other protocol listed above since the start of this, not sure if it's helping the inside but everyone was pretty amazed at how fast my incision healed.