"Jeff Grippe" wrote in message
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"Edward Dolan" wrote in message
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ALL TOP POSTERS ARE IDIOTS!


It's very interesting that you should say that again. I have joined a
Yahoo newsgroup where top posting is pretty much the way it is done.
Everyone seems to top post all the time. I don't think that they are all
idiots but you never can tell.

Even though you can't cycle much anymore, that is no reason to desert ARBR.
Hells Bells, half the folks here don't cycle anymore. The only thing we run
are our mouths. You are as good at that as anyone else.

Any progress being made on your various infirmities from your trike
accident? Enough time has now passed so that you should be getting a fix
on what your prospects are.

Well since you asked,

I have decided not to have back surgery for pain. I've talked to many
people that have had it and nobody has had just one. I don't want to start
down a road of surgery after surgery. All the people I've talked to (about
4) say the same thing. The surgery works for a while and then the pain
returns.

Jeff, that is what I have heard too from many others who have had back pain.
You just have to learn to live with it and after awhile it seems to become
less and less. Back pain is why I had to give up riding upright bicycles.
Recumbents pretty much solved the back pain (and shoulder and neck pain)
problem for me, but I did not have a major trauma like you.

When I was at the Seattle VA some years ago for my prostate cancer treatment
(external and seed implant radiation) they were flying young guys down from
Alaska, all of whom had terrible back pain. They all wanted operations, but
the docs would not operate on them no matter what. It was all about getting
those midriff muscles in shape.

But I thought that I had to do something so last month I had a gastric
bypass. I expect that over the next year or so I'll take off the 100 or so
extra pounds that I'm carrying (I'm down over 20 already). My pain doc
says that every pound
I take off is like taking 3 off my back.

Once you lose some of that weight, it will make a big difference. Everyone I
know that is overweight have lots of joint pain due to osteoarthritis (wear
and tear) and are getting knee and hip replacements.

It is unclear if I will be able to cycle again and enjoy it. There are
some physical problems on my right side that make cycling unpleasent after
a while. When I think about trying to cycle again I'm going to need to
find a pedal system that lets me press with my heel instead of my toe.
That will allow me to avoid the unpleasent stuff.

So the future is still a bit unclear. The weight loss could have a major
effect on a lot of things and I've only just begun that.

Cycling is not the be-all and end-all of life. We are actually designed for
walking, not cycling. Try to get out and walk everyday for an hour or so, if
you can do that safely there in White Plains. That is what I do here in the
winter and it works for me. I carry along my MP3 player and listen to music
as I amble about Worthington. We all of us need to move more. It is really
all this sitting around that sends us to an early grave.
[...]

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota