I have been having a lot of back pain for a while now. I've been to several back doctors. One gave me the epideral steroid shot which worked for about 2-3 weeks. One spent a whole 2 or 3 minutes telling me it was muscular which was BS, so I looked for another place. It didn't look that great at first, but the doctor spent a lot of time with me and looked at my MRI's and pointed out that some of the discs were darker because of arthritis and some are buldging. It's not to the point where it would require surgery, but he did show me all of the little areas where arthritis had built up and said that it was quite a lot for my age.

Right now I take a multi-vitamin, fish oil I need more of, but I do usually take 6 grams a day of it, CLA 6 grams a day, curcumin, D3, 6 grams MSM (pure granules) and sometimes I take "bone builder with boron". I don't know how much this helps though.

I also use an inversion table for about 1 minute at a time several times a day since it pulled my ab the last time I was using it for 10-15 minutes at a time.

Anyway, I am going to start physical therapy to do some exercise and build some muscle I guess in my lower back and my abs since it hurts my back to just do crunches.

Anyone have any advice on supplementation, foods, etc? I know that I need to stop all carbonated drinks. I guess i'll go back to tea, but is splenda ok? I know it's not the best, but better than sweet n low at least.