Page 894 - Total War on PTSD

have arthritis and bone spurs up my back because my muscles, especially in my lower back, can't hold my spine in place too well.
From then on I continually had issues with injuries of those two areas which, in time, caused my sciatica problems. The back and knee injuries messed up my sciatic nerve, and the pain is constant and sometimes unbearable. The tendons in my knee are damaged and between my back and my knee I have to use a cane most days to get around outside of my home. On really bad weeks I need my walker. I have Bursitis in one shoulder, from an injury I sustained in 1995 at an Air Force base we were visiting. They cared for me and gave me a Plan-of-Action (POA) to give my Army Primary Care Manager (PCM) when I arrived home. My PCM then laughed at the POA, said no other treatment was necessary, and that I would be fine. In Basic and AIT you didn't have a choice on who you saw. Yeah...was not fine...I have lifelong lower flexibility levels...and that shoulder does not have the same range of motion as the other. My lower back muscles seize up because of muscle injuries in my back. Even with exercise my muscles seize up. As I age these injuries are just getting worse and I have bone spurs and have developed arthritis in my spine as well as other areas. Once I was in Active Duty, they started paying attention to what I said, especially as I got higher in rank. They started actually listening to what I was saying. They took me seriously. I finally got the physical therapy I had needed all along. That helped to a certain degree. However, the damage was already done after two to three years of that so, I still, several times a year, have to go back to physical therapy. My back and my knee are just not doing well.
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