I want to thank everyone and am so glad I came across this forum too. I was diagnosed with DDD back in 1999. after being injured wrking with a child with emotional and physical disorders (god bless) they did not understand I was injured again after having surgery a disc fusion at c5-c6 which resulted in a second fusion at c6-c7. I have a bulge at c7 and at c3-c4. I am considering if I need to have another surgery I will look into the new laser surgery. I have also been diagnosed with DDD iny lower back I fell at a local store back in October in which resulted in my lower back issue and an increase in my neck and shoulder issues. I too began having numbness in my left face after the fall. I too was afraid it was a stroke and was chked for blockage and found non it seemed to slowly let up some to only increase. I am getting ready for another MRI. I have pain radiating down my arms and have arthritis in my neck back shoulders arms and hands now. I do have nerve damage in my left shoulder as well as a loose shoulder joint. I so miss wrking with the children but to high risk for me. I did apply for disability back in 2000 was denied I thought I was not ready to consider myself disabled. again I was told I needed to apply so I tried again in 2005. in the meantime I started a home business/hobby to help take care of my family. I had children at home back then. again I was denied. my doc told me I needed to apt again so I have in and applied only to be told that I was being denied and that I no longer had any disability available to me. apparently if you are not wrking they have the right to start subtracting your disability that you wrked and payed in. where it goes I do not know. Here I thought I was being a strong and good person. my advice to those of you in this same health direction don't Waite, apply. this only seemed to get worse unfortunately and as many of you said. others do not understand the daily pain we go through. and for those of us that want to fight and live, we def pay for it at the end of each day. My husband is a saint. massages me every night to help Eliviate the pain. the headaches I get are deabilitating I either end up with shots or taking a heavy med that knocks me out. some days I'm not sure what scares me more. I want to thank everyone for sharing as well as allowing me to express. it's def a lonely ace to be when those around you do not understand. I don't look for sympathy I just try to find answers and be my own advocate . I too have tried pt several different times and only find that it aggrivates and inflames . I wish you all much strength and support through this. it's sad there are so many of us with this diagnoses and unanswered questions. I am glad however that I stumbled upon this sight. Sorry for the long text! I hope this helps even one person not to end up with no support or no disability. If you would like to talk let me know and I will be happy to share my emai! I wish everyone my best! <3

Don't really know but have an idea it is related to the inner ear infection. Are you off antibiotics now? Is the lump red or white? Do you get canker sores? If I have too much acid my tongue gets sore & bumpy. If it was an abscess I would think that the antibiotic treatment would have cleared it up or at least made it feel better. A root canal would be too deep to feel tho I had 1 yrs ago & it was an eye tooth in front & pain was mostly in my nose so possible infection from tooth is spreading out but like I said the meds should have made it feel better for awhile. Your bad tooth may be poisoning your whole body as you have had 2 infections in 1 month. If the tooth is towards the back on top it might be cheapest to have it pulled. At least get it x-rayed to see what is going on. Infected tooth can go to the heart & be fatal so not smart to ignore. Hope you get relief soon & end of your medical problems.

Good timing. We just got home from Harry's 61st reunion and those 79-year olds looked pretty darned good. And had a great time! Now I'm looking forward to my 50th next year in Indiana. We always have the best time and don't care that much that the guys have no hair and we don't weigh 105 anymore. We're just glad to see one another.

I just asked my dermatologist at an annual check up if laser treatment can help with a scar left after having a basal skin cell cancer removed. Another derm did the removal; I had let it go for quite awhile so dr ended up scraping quite a bit deeper and wider than the usual small lesion, resulting in basically a patch of white skin about the size of a penny. It's directly above one eyebrow and while not a yuck/OMG/what happened to YOU type appearance, because the scar is so white it's a distinctly different color compared to the rest of my face and very noticeable. Anyway, has anyone tried laser treatments for something like this? Again, the scar isn't keloidal or raised, it's just the skin color that is 'off'. Dermatologist gave me a list of doctors he'd recommend, but as always the gardenweb community is probably the best source of real life feedback :).