Chronic Back Pain

I had a Laminectomy & Microdisectomy on L4-L5. had a normal 6 week recovery, started physical Therapy and did PT for 7 visits. One night out my 2yr old in the crib and back went out on me. Couldn't walk and in the most pain EVER!! Spent 4 days in hospital. Since then I have had a cortizone injection which didn't work or help in any way. Still experiencing pain in the middle to lower back,butt,legs and groin. I am now going to have an EMG. What will an EMG tell my doc? Any other suggestions of what I should be doing to figure out what is going on with me?

[Nassim Abi Chahine, MD]

many causes could be in the list of recurrence of pain. first of all re-herniation of the disk and that is THE MOST POPULAR CAUSE OF PAIN AFTER MINI SURGERIES ON THE LUMBAR DISCS. number too facet syndrome and listhesis. to differntiate between them MRI with contrast injection could be done. If an EMG show a nerve damage your doctor can confirm a nerve compression, most probably by a disk, but in case of no nerve damage your doctor cannot be sure of your disk status, so thats why this is a confirmation test not used for exclusion.