To have surgery or not? Little pain however....

I have seen my surgeon a few times now and last visit he was staring I needed surgery however was waiting for next MRI results before booking. 10 months ago I herniated disc in l5 and films showed obvious pressure on sciatic nerve. I lost a lot of feeling in left leg and strength.  A few months later I had issues on right side and surgeon felt I now blew s1 disc.  Well had MRI again Friday see surgeon tomorrow. My question for all is...... The pain is now bearable.  I do get tired sore and grumpy if I do to much but I do not feel I need surgery for the pain.  However I have not been able to walk properly at all especially since s1 herniation.  Most days I am needing to walk on tiptoes of left leg however sometimes i need to have left leg forward and as far left as possible to walk.  Honestly it's all so confusing and I never know how I will need to use left leg when waking up until I start walking.

My question is will surgery help me get normal use of my leg and if I don't have surgery am I looking at wearing out knee/ hip joints due to my abnormal walk??

[weikelklan]

At a doc appointment the other day...still having some nerve pain after a L5S1 fuse, he said that the longer you walk with problems, the faster arthitis starts.  

[deborah999]

That is my concern for sure.  I am also wondering if after 8-10 months of herniation occurring if it will even be fixed with surgery

[Phyllis2010]

Of course everyone is different. I have NOT had surgery at the advice of my neurologist. In March of 2010 I had major problems walking --- no pain but intermittent claudication, numbness, veering to the left -- had to use a cane. MRI revealed multilevel degenerative disk disease, compressed nerve (chronic radiculopathy), spinal stenosis, osteoarthritis. It's taken a year and a half and two major back outages but I've finally found a brilliant physical therapist and also normalized my vitamin D levels. At present I'm 85-95% improved and hoping my back does not go out again. What I'm trying to say is that recovery is slow (nerves heal at the rate of hair growth), but it can happen without surgery. I'm doing as well or better than friend who've undergone surgery but like I said upfront everyone is different.