Sciatica

I see there's different brands with better/worse purity. Im taking oral capsules, feeling better but raises blood pressure. Def eat with it. Im a 47 year old remodeling contractor. So shoulders tore, knees crackling, lower back pain, sciatica, tendonitis in my right hamstring. Headaches come when you take too much from BP going up.

Bad sciatica and right hip.. i struggled to get out of bed every morning.. weight training was painful.. One week with bpc and I can jump out of bed and do star jumps instantly.. I can still feel the tightness in the hip but no pain at all

I’ve been researching this for a little while now. I have a herniated disc that’s slowly been getting better over the last couple months (At one point I could only sit/stand/walk for 10mins at a time) in constant agony from sciatic nerve pain too. I’ve also seen in some studies BPC 157 along with TB 500 can also help promote stem cell production. I just got some of both in the mail and will be taking 500mcg of both 2x a day for the next 60 and will update if it can improve my health in any way, shape or form. Keep in mind I wasn’t able to get my hands on injectable so I’ll be taking orally but the brand I found is hydrolyzed capsules. In theory it’s supposed to absorb better and preserve the half life.

First, keeping in line with the subreddit rules, I have consulted a doctor and currently seeing a PT twice weekly. Somewhat of a vent here, more than anything. Initially I was diagnosed with just being extremely 'tight". I have horrible neck pain and back pain. Both favouring the left side of my body (in addition to sciatica in my left leg). The pain SEEMs to only be muscular. My PT seems to think I have extreme lack of mobility due to some heavy recurrent strains, and that is the problem. He also thinks my posture is what has caused a majority of the issues. GRANTED, my posture for my adult life has been AWFUL, so I don't doubt that this is a major contributing factor. But I also have been in a job that is very heavy impact and physically demanding for my entire adult life. I use to be an avid runner, but can no longer run because I will be in pain the next several days if I do. My neck and back hurt (ache) like all the time, I get tingling sensations on my left side when they get very aggravated. I can even feel it in my arm and shoulder (not sure if its because there is some nerve radiation, or a product of CONSTANTLY tensing my body to compensate and protect against straining my neck and back too much). Either way, I am just miserable at times. Going in again next week to ask for a re-evaluation with my doctor, maybe look at doing some MRIs to see if I have any disc problems. Naproxen and Ibuprophen help MAJORLY, but I have IBS so I am too damn scared to take them because they may flare up my stomach. I use to run half marathons and lift weights . . . now I hesitate to take in more than one bag of groceries at a time (not because I don't have the strength to do it, but because I am worried it will aggravate my neck). Alas, am I the only one feeling all this stuff simultaneously? Does anyone else have tandem back and neck problems? Can bad posture really cause all this? (All questions I will bring up with my doctor of course, but would be nice to hear other people who have ACTUALLY experienced it).

Background: I’m a big guy who has bounced between being over weight and in shape. I had finally found a good gym routine where I was going 3-5 times a week and was in great shape. However a few years ago I fell and I’ve had intermittent “sciatica” ever since. It took 4 years just to find a doctor that didn’t think I just wanted drugs and I finally got a MRI and found out I have degenerative disks in my back. It basically ruined my routine and made me scared to get back in the gym. I’ve heard about peptides and BPC 157, what are the best sources so I can decide if this is could finally help me get back in the gym.

almost four years ago now (wow, time flies), i set out on a much-needed epic weight-loss journey. i went from a predominantly sedentary lifestyle, allowing myself to balloon up to 490lbs by the age of 31, to suddenly adapting a super active + healthy lifestyle, taking up boxing (the main thing that helped), as well as general cardio + weight-training, and clean eating (as well as intermittent fasting + restricting calories). the weight, as you can no doubt imagine, began just flying off. in the span of eight months, i lost 140lbs. it was a ton of hard work, super intense multi-hour daily gym sessions + really strict diet, but the payoff was immense- i was a whole new person, sure, physically, but especially mentally... while at 350, i was still very heavy, i felt and looked worlds better than at my start weight. i was a totally new person. then it happened- a deadlifting accident, which would serve as the impetus behind my falling off the wagon in the most catastrophic way. i ended up gaining everything back in less than a year- fell back to my old ways of completely unrestricted, wild, binge-eating without consequence. now i beat myself up telling myself "if you couldn't work out, you should've AT LEAST kept the diet tight...", and generally for just allowing myself back to this weight, when i promised myself for every 10lbs i lost, that that was a number i'd never exceed again. so much for that- i failed that promise more than 14 times for every 10 i put back on. the thing is, despite weighing what i did when i started, i now feel so, so, much worse than i did when i first weighed this, and it's hard to say whether it's just due to that injury, or due to how my body tolerates such excess now that i'm a bit older, or what... even when i weighed near-500lbs, i was (relatively) much more agile and athletic, people actually always marvelled at how quick and "athletic" i was for such a big guy (i'm also pretty tall fwiw). it's of course also possible that the effects of the injury compounded with the general effects of weighing so much (and associated inflammation) are what's causing me this extreme pain and discomfort. can herniated discs take so long to heal? or muscle tears? i did an mri and four herniated discs, as well as an additional vertebrae in my coccyx were found, along with general disc degeneration. i have also had what i'm sure are some severe muscle tears in various areas, but haven't been able to get a test to verify yet. additionally, i've had a long-lasting bout of pretty acute sciatica in my right leg + hip... the 4-5x i suffered sciatica previously over the years, it always resolved within 7-10 days, but it's now been more than a year. the pain is absolutely excruciating for most of my waking moments, with bed-- the place everyone, even the sickliest/most damaged, are supposed to get a reprieve from the pain-- being the absolute hell of my day every night... just turning from side to side, an excruciating 5-10 minute ordeal, often causing me to shoot up in sheer blinding pain. this pain is in so many places, slightly differently- my torso, abdominal area in particular, and my back are by far the worst off, with my right hip, the sciatica, and my knees being not far behind. the knees sometimes are searing hot with pain. the smallest, seemingly most inconsequential, move has the ability to send me into the most violent, intense, painful spasm of pain. i can just reach behind my head a certain way or have a tiny trip on something, and my entire torso + back + hips are suddenly in 8.5/10 pain... the turning in bed, i sometimes have to bite down on my pillow to make it tolerable. i cannot live like this- i feel completely hopeless and lost. i've been to so many doctors, only to get vague, inconclusive, answers or what seem like uncharted diagnoses like costochondritis (only ever got that once)- never anything definitive that could actually see me on a path to any kind of meaningful rehabilitation. the pain is so bad most of the days that i would truly rather die. i carried the weight so much better pre-injury. yes, regardless, that is an abnormal amount of weight to be carrying, i'm merely just saying. of course i want to lose the weight (and more) again, but being in this level of pain all waking hours, it's awful hard to get back up again and go for it- forget about with the intensity of before; i wouldn't last a minute under my old training regimens, but just in general. i can't stand for more than 20-30 min at a time without my hips and back starting to hurt tremendously, and then when i finally take a seat, even just that kills. is it really, truly, JUST the weight, or is it the weight + the back injury and everything else, or is it mostly the back injury and other documented things? i just never used to experience pain like this- and i have quite a high threshold, having been through a lot in my life. how ever can i get back on the wagon when fits of pain keep me psychologically from wanting to engage again- a sort of anxiety response, knowing the pain and discomfort that await. i'm currently unemployed and not doing well financially at all, but have a gig coming up soon which will require me being on my feet for 5-6 hours... it's in two weeks, and i have NO idea how i'll get through it- i almost want to bail ahead, but desperately need the money. advil + tylenol (both extra strength) mask the pain for only a couple hours, but i try to avoid them for obvious reasons- but i will need them to get through this. i genuinely see and empathize re: how easy it is to get hooked on opioids... with such excruciating pain being so ever-present in your life as the sun rising every morning, how could you not turn to the stronger reprieve these narcotics offer? i completely, wholeheartedly, understand, but am desperately trying to avoid it and find a solution before going down that avenue, especially as i very recently had a dear friend pass from exactly such circumstances (although his use was prolonged after many years battling chronic pains resulting from a major accident). you just want the pain to be gone so bad; for you to have a slight return to any semblance of pain-free normalcy that you can recall, that you're willing to gamble your life. this level of pain is maddening and all-consuming, and deprives you of participating in the most basic, birth-right, parts of everyday life- it makes you an alien.

Last night I went to bed around midnight. I should've taken something bc I was in pain (legs and sciatica), but I was too tired to get up, so I didn't and just went to sleep in pain. My infant woke up around 4:30-4:45-ish fussing... I take her from her crib and nurse her and she falls asleep pacifying, so I pull her off and go get up to take some Motrin, since I can't have anything else. I look at the clock. It's right at five. I look out the window. My brain goes "Ooh! Daylight!!! It's time to get up!". My back goes "Oh, we're awake now? Ok. Time to amp up the pain! We've got this!" The other part of my brain is like, "Guys. Shut up. We're still tired and it's not time to get up yet.". Of course my brain and body are like, "Naaahhhh. We see sunlight! It's time to get up!!!". So I take my Motrin and crawl into bed, cuddling my mood regulator (baby), as I do a National Geographic narration in my head of a mother and her youngling in the nest. I create this narrative of how not every mother in this species does this with their young, and Science has yet to discover why. The baby stirs and I give her a pacifier as she settles back down. She's gone from grabbing her hair to caressing my arm and pulling it around her. I continue with the internal monologue of the protective mother providing comfort and security for her youngling until she is ready to go out into the world and leave the safety and security of the nest. Sometimes this helps me fall back asleep, but my husband was up shortly after getting ready for work, so I've been awake since. Yeah, I know it's probably weird, but I'd feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one that does strange stuff like this to pass the time and try to distract myself from pain and sleepless nights when I can't watch tv.