I’ve been on most pain meds and stuff. If you haven’t tried Diclofenac, maybe ask for it or give it a go. That is a muscle relaxer with very few down sides and has made a big difference for me lately unlike anything else I have taken. It does not screw with the mind or stomach in the same way as most other things. It just needs to go with food, but like it doesn’t mess with adhd meds or other down sides really. A neighbor had hip surgery and was like, I should take this, and wow did it make a difference. My lows are much more manageable and I can do stuff I haven’t been able to do in years.

I also have poor blood flow in my legs from being a cyclist with enormous legs. If you place a heating pad under your lower thighs and calves as much as possible, it may greatly help with circulation and blood flow while accelerating your recovery significantly. That is also part of advanced recovery with endurance races, especially when combined with compression tights. If you feel cold feet at all, it will likely help in recovery to add some heat to improve blood flow and circulation. The taller you are, the more import this is too. Like I can’t even fully heal cuts or road rash on my lower legs without adding a heating pad routine, but with a daily routine of an hour or two, I will fully recover in a couple of weeks even with really bad stuff.

As far as visiting here around LA, you really need a solid plan of where you want to go and what you want to do with every link known and connected. It is not like most places where you can just wing it like a tourist in the tourist targeted way. Sure there is Disneyland, and that is all inclusive and encapsulated. Laguna Beach down here closer to me is cool to walk around. They have a big art show once a year called pageant of the masters. There is Venice Beach too. Downtown LA is a major disappointment to see. You’ve likely seen it countless times in films because of its proximity to Hollywood, but you will quickly see how it was strategically framed and often digitally augmented to make it appear much larger than it really is. The stars walk and Hollywood Blvd are in a run down neighborhood. There are no historical sites or significant things to see in the area that are relative to the past or film. You learn that all you see in movies and shows is hacked together temporary junk that looks like a dump just outside of the image frame.

I forget the name for it but there is a ringed distance around the film studios where the unions Mark the boundary for day work without the studio paying for accommodations or paying transportation costs. Almost everything you have ever seen that was filmed in Hollywood happens within this boundary. So when you’re traveling around the region you might have strange familiarity in places at random like deja vu. One of the cool things, US wise, is that so much stuff is imported through the port of Long Beach, so there are many small businesses scattered throughout the LA basin selling stuff that is only available here or places like Shenzhen. Through you probably have similar around London.

That is about all I know of use. I’m boring by most people’s standards. My interests are generally too niche to even talk about or too subtle to call a real destination, and I value the nerdy stuff over the experience and emotions.

GL and have fun!

Mine was riding a bicycle to work, and fighting two SUVs in 2014. Both of them were total losses, and they only managed to break my neck and back. Empirically, I have chronic damage to my thoracic spin between the shoulder blades that makes posture very limited. It is the rarest region for people to injure, so my back issues are very atypical. The underlying cause of my issues are unknown, which leaves me in a doomed limbo in life. I actually had very serious damage to C1 and the base of my skull that was nearly lethal. So all the neurosurgeons see is an ambiguous unremarkable radiologist’s report from an MRI, and the extremely concerning initial damage to a region of my spine that could be a ticking time bomb, and want nothing to do with the risk involved with trying to find the cause or a solution. I have had to come to terms with that and it doesn’t really bother me much any more. I was supposed to die in 2014 but I am only half dead now, so whatever, roll with it. I’m not sharing for the sympathy or whatnot. I’m always worried that asking anything personal might make the other person uncomfortable in some way that is off putting. So I often lead by example and just put myself out there to help gauge or imply my level of interest, openness, and straightforwardness.

I have never heard of disability support for a flight. What does that entail? I cannot sustain sitting upright beyond 45 degrees at the very most. Even then I need my legs up in a way the takes all tension and strain off of holding up my head, arms, and shoulders. Like lying here in bed right now, I’m proper up on pillows where my elbows rest on the bed and forearms over my torso, so that only my wrists and hands are engaged with my phone. My back is completely neutral in this position so my pain level falls to a consistent white noise where I can hear my internal dialog clearly. I can also use my bedside stand for a laptop in a similar neutral position. I can be upright and walk around just fine for an hour or so each day, but that builds stress about like lifting weights in a gym. I can actually go for much longer if I try, but I won’t be able to sleep very much for several days afterwards. Then I turn into a mindless zombie, and multiple days in a row are killers that can last for months without sleep. So I only exist in my little isolated prison safe from the killer zombie me. I don’t think the airlines have a zombie containment zone, but who knows, I had no idea they had any real disability remedies beyond midget sardine accommodations.