{"id":597,"date":"2020-10-06T18:35:46","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T22:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myuprightlife.com\/?p=597"},"modified":"2020-10-06T18:35:50","modified_gmt":"2020-10-06T22:35:50","slug":"nicks-story-anterolisthesis-leads-to-sitting-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myuprightlife.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/06\/nicks-story-anterolisthesis-leads-to-sitting-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick\u2019s Story: A Mobile Software Developer Remains Sedentary, Develops Back Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nick B. thought he was making smart choices when, in 2008, he left his native Nashville and headed west to Dallas-Fort Worth to begin his studies at The University of Texas at Arlington. He majored in computer engineering, and took a particular interest in software development for mobile devices. He had scrutinized tech trends, and predicted that smartphone apps would become the industry\u2019s new hot spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he graduated in 2012, his prediction was becoming manifest, and he had every reason to expect an exciting and lucrative career. For a while, he appeared to be right. Straight out of college, Nick moved to Oklahoma and got a string of software development jobs in the financial, educational, and technology sectors. His third job finally placed him squarely in a mobile software development role. Bigger companies came courting, and Nick knew that as a talented and experienced developer, the negotiating power was all on his side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not Winning Any Healthy Living Awards<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While at college, Nick picked up the sorts of bad habits that were typical of his peers. He would cap off a study session with hours of computer game play. He liked the type of food that leaves a greasy stain on the wrappers. He drank Coca-Cola, or beer. Sometimes he drank too much alcohol, and smoked up to a pack of cigarettes a day. From time to time, he also experimented with marijuana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, so he wasn\u2019t earning any healthy living awards, but any emergency room doctor had certainly seen worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In retrospect, it seems obvious that Nick\u2019s health would collapse eventually. But he wasn\u2019t expecting it to happen in his mid-20s, and he certainly didn\u2019t think his back would be the first thing to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be fair, Nick knew he wasn\u2019t immortal, and after college he started tackling his bad habits one by one. Shortly after he was thrust out of the ivory tower, he quit smoking. And a couple years later, he got his alcohol consumption under control. Marijuana was easy to eliminate, since he had never been more than an occasional user. He experimented with healthier diets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But despite these ostensibly healthy changes, Nick didn\u2019t feel<\/em> any better. Quite the opposite, in fact. When Nick stopped drinking, he realized that the insomnia that had started to plague him was not a consequence of the alcohol. Instead, it was due to back pain, a sensation the alcohol had helped to mask. There were many nights when Nick could only lull himself to sleep with a handful of painkillers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
By 2014, Nick was getting his health under control and advancing in his career. His hard work was about to be foiled by…a chair.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Fragile Arch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But what exactly was causing Nick\u2019s pain? The answer turned out to be spondylolysis (pronounced spon-deh-LOL-eh-sis), a tongue-twister of a disorder that involves a fracture in one of the bony protrusions on the back of the vertebrae. Nick\u2019s condition was categorized as anterolisthesis, meaning his L5 vertebrae had slipped forward about 3 millimeters over the vertebrae below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The injury that caused Nick\u2019s vertebral fracture likely happened years before Nick noticed the consequences. Fractures of this sort are typical in adolescent spines, and are often the result of sports injuries from activities that require repeated extension and flexion of the spine. Gymnasts, for example, have high rates of spondylolysis \u2013 11% of female gymnasts<\/a> are thought to be affected. Athletes in sports like football, soccer, baseball, cricket, and weightlifting, also suffer high rates of injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CT scan Nick underwent in 2017 also indicated that his spinal issue had been present for some time, though the radiologist could not say with certainty whether it was due to a previous injury or a congenital defect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before his computer-centric time in college, Nick enjoyed roughhousing with his friends and playing sports. In grade school, he played football and soccer, and in high school he competed in lacrosse and rugby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Nick did end up with a fracture without realizing it, he wouldn\u2019t be the only one. Many young athletes with spondylolysis don\u2019t realize it at the time. They\u2019re often in great shape, and unknowingly use their core muscles to stabilize their spines. But when these young athletes get older, stop playing sports, and lose their physical conditioning, their spinal defects start to manifest as pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Nick transitioned from a dedicated athlete to a gamer and software developer, he was no longer challenging his core muscles. This loss of fitness might well have contributed to the gradual onset of pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
To a radiologist, Nick’s anterolisthesis is obvious. I, however, need to take it on faith.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Making Ends Meet<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By 2016, Nick had his pick of job offers, but there was an unfortunate commonality among them \u2013 they all required him to keep his butt in a chair. Nick saw two options \u2013 he could either accept a job he knew he wasn\u2019t capable of doing long-term, or he could give up office work altogether and find something more suited to his physical needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prospect of suffering through a job that he\u2019d eventually have to leave didn\u2019t sound that appealing to Nick, so he chose the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But finding suitable work would prove to be more difficult than it sounded. A full-time job was out of the question; forty hours a week of sucking up pain wouldn\u2019t leave him with enough time to recover. But his college degree and work experience left him strangely ill-qualified for standing jobs, which clustered in low-paying industries such as food service and retail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He worked a string of retail jobs. He was a cashier at a clothing store, then worked sales at a hardware store and a nutrition shop. But he wasn\u2019t properly conditioned for these jobs either, and his aching legs eventually forced him to quit. His stint as an Uber driver \u2013 chosen for its flexible hours \u2013 was doomed from the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick lived alone, and were it not for the disability benefits he received, his meager income from these jobs wouldn\u2019t have been enough to cover his basic expenses. He might have ended up homeless, or worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to navigate my low points when I don\u2019t have a safety net,\u201d Nick said. \u201cI\u2019m very thankful for having the disability money. If it wasn\u2019t for that, I don\u2019t know where I would have been.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Discovers His Own Mind-Body Connection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nick\u2019s professional sacrifices were part of a total life overhaul. It made no sense to give up on a lucrative career if he was just going to languish in pain anyway. So he redoubled his commitment to healthy living, and went out in search of ways to help manage his condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First on the list was sitting. Nick decided it was more trouble than it was worth, and started looking for ways to cut it out. At home, he\u2019d lay on the floor with his computer screen propped on two chairs. He learned that laying on his side was more comfortable than laying on his back, which necessitated experiments with other strange computer positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he still had to sit sometimes, especially when driving. This led to pain, which Nick still needed to figure out how to manage. He tried controlling his pain through prescription medications, as well as self-prescribed drugs and alcohol. But Nick learned early on that while these substances masked pain in the short-term, they led him to ignore and overrule his body\u2019s pain signals. Eventually, he would pay for any short-sightedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained, \u201cIf I use medical marijuana, or opioids, I\u2019ll feel good when I do it, but I\u2019ll lose that mind-body connection. Once I go down that road, I might feel good, but my body will know it\u2019s fighting an injury, and it won\u2019t let me sleep. I always have to get back to that equilibrium by removing any substances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead of distracting myself and avoiding the pain \u2013 which I had a habit of doing \u2013 I need to take that pain and keep it close. I need to keep an eye on it. I need to listen very closely to what my body needs for pain relief.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n