I'm David, 21 years old from Australia, was in the Army until December last year until i was medically discharged. My problem has been identified as soft tissue musculo-skeletal injury thoracic spine with recurrent interscapular pain (upper & lower). I think they just called it that because they don't know what exactly the problem is. I've had every sort of test - blood, mris, xrays etc.
I was doing a pack march and suddenly felt this sharp pain, didnt say anything for months (becos i would have got booted off course), so it kept getting worse, then i eventually had to because it became unbearable and it hasnt healed sinse (this was about 2 years ago)..
I have recently started UNI doing a marketing course but i got a problem because it looks to be agrevating my injury a lot (carring books, sitting long periods of time etc.) so by the end of the day i can hardly move. I should be able to keep this up because i have prescription drugs for the pain, unfortunately i can not take them during class because they make me drousy.
But my other dilemma is that although im still getting "incapacity payments" from the Army (they are still giving me in income), this however ends in March meaning im going to need a part time job. But i don't know physically how im possibly going to manage a part time job when im already in this kind of pain. Because im sure whatever it is it will just aggreviate it more. (Sitting, standing for long periods (over 30 minutes) does it make it worse) So i dont see how im going to be able to keep a job.
Anyway i thought i would like to give an introduction to my self because i will probably be spending a bit of time here over the next "how long it takes".
