tenchiken

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I went through a severe disc intrusion, 68‰ central spinal compression.

Full treatment was anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, followed by a few years of on/off physical therapies and some follow-up steroidal spinal nerve epidural shots for pain treatments.

I note this is likely a more extreme case than you describe, but it might give insight into potential risks or perhaps unexpected things to look forward to.

My issues went untreated for close to about 20 years after onset of first neuropathic symptoms.

Initial symptoms:

Arms burning/pain from any position angled over shoulder height.

Headaches and neck pain, frequent.

Weakness in left arm and hand.

Later these turned to outright muscle spasm in shoulders and neck. Everything became more painful.

Started losing reliable use of left hand and would lose balance and use of left foot. Lots of aching pain in left thigh.

This was around time of diagnosis, consider baseline for me.

I attempted many months of various physical therapy and drug treatments. Some stalled things getting worse, none resolved things. Important to note, I had nerve damage by this time to the central canal.

A neurosurgeon performed a Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion, removing the bad disc layer and using a structure to bond the associated spinal bones C5 and C6 together, including a titanium plate and 2 screws.

I woke up in the recovery feeling better than I had in literal years.

That said, this surgery took place in 2016. I'm still recovering from the nerve damage and muscle death caused my the initial injury.

From the immediate pressure release, I was back to my baseline function within just a few weeks. Surgery related stuff resolved quickly for me.

I slept better than the previous 20 years. Absolutely worth it for me.

I mainly needed physical therapy exercises to keep the neck and shoulder areas stretching out since the muscle trauma can cause tightening.

Since that time, I'm still recovering from the associated nerve damage from the initial compression, but it's still an amazing night and day improvement.

Aside from the main surgery itself, the things that made the biggest differences for me:

Steroid epidurals: neuro anaesthesiologists can isolate areas inflamed in the region and can target painkillers and steroids to hugely improve many symptoms, often permanently. Not simplest, but easier than surgery and has also helped me with some associated shoulder stenosis greatly. Takes pressure off nerve damage to allow healing and pain relief.

Tizanidine: prescription muscle relaxer. This one functions a bit different than Robaxin / Soma / Valium, and was a life saver for years before they identified the stenosis itself. It was the only relief for the tightness or cramping I'd experience in neck, shoulders, left thigh and calves.

Swimming and cycling: done in low intensity, these have been the most successful exercises at rebuilding the muscle deterioration in my central and lower back. I use a pedal-assist style ebike that let's me focus the work based on pace and heart rate, with it taking the brunt of harder hills.

Stretches!!! While the strength stuff from PT matters, the stretching stuff matters 10000x more! Needed to work with the therapist to figure stuff that wasn't in the books etc... Strange angles to isolate the areas specific to my injury. Once we dialed in what I should try to feel from a good stretch, I've been able to catch the bad stuff as it starts early pretty often.

Good luck on your treatment, whatever you choose. I hope you find real relief.

Feel free to DM me if you have specific questions or if I can help. This is a lot to digest, and I'm happy to offer clarity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Like the ideas so far.

My requests/thoughts:

Option to integrate or remove the bottom icons with the other rows... When setting sizes they don't match up.

Love the rows themselves, fits my preferences well. Especially the arrangement haptics!

Disable the media players option? Maybe dynamically expand from a single icon when in use? Dedicate to a specific media source?

Widget picker is a bit of a mess, option to sort by application?

So far really liking what it is. Keep at it please!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Yeah... I suspect it has something to do with controlling info on Ukraine pushing back perhaps.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That server sounds a bit older in the teeth... Has new thermal paste been applied to the cpu? Even if the reported temps are under 90c, you might be getting hot spots causing glitches inside the package.

Worth trying a couple of different generations of kernel as well, both newer and older. You might be hitting a regression somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Holy crap that is comprehensive. Great timing since I'm about to wipe and redo my server from scratch.

Thanks for sharing!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

An extra $10 and you can get a model that can pull from a hot water line under a nearby sink. Then you get a dial to adjust the temp.

A little extra work putting in, but worth it for folks with scar tissue from surgery etc.

To purge the line, most have a self clean that gets the water from the heater ready simply enough.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Absolutely this. Save trouble.

If absolutely in need of a backplane, look for old chassis parts from super micro on eBay.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

He doesn't get older, just more and more apparent he was right this whole time

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

"... remnants of the duty still in my pants..."

Call of Duty: Black Plops

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago

Thanks!

I hate it.

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