Back Pain Support Group
Back pain is one of the most common reasons people seek medical care. In fact, about 3 in 4 adults will experience back pain during their lifetime! The term back pain includes pain affecting the neck, midback and low back. Acute back pain may begin suddenly with intense pain but typically lasts fewer than three months. Usually, chronic back pain is persistent, steady, and...
I have been out of work since the end of September when the pain in my neck, trunk and legs became so bad I could no longer cope with the challenges of my job. I am a high school teacher. In 1997 I had a discectomy at L5-S1. The new neuro I just went to ordered an MRI of my entire spine. I did some checking on him before I went and he is extremely experienced and teaches other doctors minimally invasive spine procedures.
In my previous appointment he told me he had the largest spinal practice in ND and his wife and family wanted him to slow down, stop taking so many patients and stop teaching all over. He assured me he would give me an objective opinion since he really didn't need the money and his family wants him to slow down.
(As an aside, he told me to stay away from spinal "institutes" that advertise on the internet as their chief goal is to make money whether surgey will help you or not)
Anyway, yesterday I had a full MRI of the spine and met with him afterwards. He said I must have a genetic predisposition to DDD and needed to have fusion surgery at L4L5S1 and at C5C6C7 to prevent further nerve damage. He also said he could not be sure the surgery would result in the body's repair of the nerve damage that had already taken place and it was likely I would need to be on opiod therapy for pain control the rest of my life.
This was the last thing I wanted to hear, especially when I hear of so many failed back surgeries and continued pain and problems after spinal surgery. Can anyone give me some words of wisdom? I am quite depressed about the whole situation
In my previous appointment he told me he had the largest spinal practice in ND and his wife and family wanted him to slow down, stop taking so many patients and stop teaching all over. He assured me he would give me an objective opinion since he really didn't need the money and his family wants him to slow down.
(As an aside, he told me to stay away from spinal "institutes" that advertise on the internet as their chief goal is to make money whether surgey will help you or not)
Anyway, yesterday I had a full MRI of the spine and met with him afterwards. He said I must have a genetic predisposition to DDD and needed to have fusion surgery at L4L5S1 and at C5C6C7 to prevent further nerve damage. He also said he could not be sure the surgery would result in the body's repair of the nerve damage that had already taken place and it was likely I would need to be on opiod therapy for pain control the rest of my life.
This was the last thing I wanted to hear, especially when I hear of so many failed back surgeries and continued pain and problems after spinal surgery. Can anyone give me some words of wisdom? I am quite depressed about the whole situation
Not all spinal surgeries are horror stories, the one thing that you need to remember is that most of the people that come to places like DS are the ones that continue having pain, or that their surgeries failed. The ones that has succesful surgeries, usually are back to work and back to a normal productive life, so take the comments here with a grain of salt.
Is this Doctor able to perform your surgeries? If not, is he able to send you to the best surgeon in ND? Surgery is a very personal decision, and just because my surgery failed, thanks to Doctor error, I am not going to talk you out of having the surgery. Investigate as much as you can. Educate yourself, make sure to get another opinion to see what someone else says, and if after all of that you decide to go for the surgeries, then have this Doc recommend someone to you. Take care and I hope that you can make your decision.
Good luck to you. I wish only the best for you. Remember that everyone is different.
I'm not rushing off to do anything. The oxycontin and percocet as needed keep my comfortable during the day. It's just gettting up for the day until the oxy kicks in that is miserable. But since I hurt all over, i don't have much faith that these two recommended surgeries are going to make me a new man.
In addition I have pain in my back when i eat and it sometimes radiates around into my stomach area. i can only eat just a little at a time and it has to be on the liquid side of it increases the pain.
I've had all sorts of tests for this, too, with no answers. Sometimes I think you have to be nearly dying before they can figure out what the problem is. I have lost a lot of faith in the medical community, buy you have to do what you have to do. For now, that's probably just wait and see.
I did contact the records dept at the hospital and said I wanted to read the report of the spine scan because the doc didn't take hardly any time except to tell me what i needed. Well, thank you, but I would rather make that decision myself once I see and understand the different issues.