what do I expect??

[jst4shanell]

I have had back problems for 6-7 years now.  I can't say exactly when it started, I just know it's been a long time.  I have been seeing a chiropractor for months who first diagnosed me with facet syndrome.I told him it hurt when I coughed and if I sneeze it brought me to my knees.  After months of not much help, I decided to go back to my doctor.  They decided to do an MRI and it came back as a herniated L4 disk and arthritis.  I was having trouble peeing so they did another MRI to see if I had MS.  That came back as a herniated disk in my C4-C5.  I have been in some of the worst pain in my life.  I cannot sit for longer than a couple minutes because of the shooting pains in my hips and legs.  My right leg tends to be worse, but it seems to alternate.  I can only stand for short periods.  My bones in my legs ache so bad I feel like i'm going to throw up.  I have numbness in my hands and feet.  My right leg is weaker than my left.  I cannot move my head around a lot of times.  I am very active in extreme sports.  My life is on hold right now from everything.  I can only work a couple hours a day with the aide of Percocet.  I see a neurosurgen on Tuesday July 3 (next week).  What should I expect??  I am nervous and excited.  I wonder if I have this false hope that he's going to fix me and everything is going to be better, but i'm also scared he's not going to do anything to take this pain away.  I absolutly cannot live my life like this.  I see my chiropractor everyday so I can walk a little better.  I spend about $800 a month on chiropractor and physical therapy and massage.  Does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom??
thanks!

[jst4shanell]

I just got back from the neurosurgeon.  My L4 disk is degenerated.  He showed me the scans from the MRI and it was completly black where is should have been all white.  My symptoms don't match what was shown so they suspect it could be an autoammune disease.  I will be going in for further tests.  They are going to give me steroid shots to see if it will help with the pain.  My other option is spinal fusion which is a 50/50 sucess rate.  I am devestated by this news right now and don't know what to do.  He said there was another procedure that replaced the disk with something else but it cannot be performed in the state of Washington because it can kill people.  What do I do???
I am at a loss right now!

[ssjdecube]

Conservative care doesn't work for everyone. My mother was diagnosed with a herniated lumber disc at L4, and tried decompression amoung other things. She finally had surgery, and it was a great thing for her. Thet found the problem was not the herniated disc, but that a piece had broken off and was floating around. This could have lodged and cause permanet damage. The peice was  small and hid by the disc on the MRI.

So after you have tried conservative care with no relief, surgery can offer potential relief. Just be aware the current statitics are not always good ( depending on condition and what having done, can range fron 20-70% success rate). Research the surgery you are thinking about and the surgeon doing the procedure. www.chirofacts.info alows you to search research and studies and find surgeons

[giveitback]

I am very sorry to hear of your situation, I can totally relate to what you are saying. I am also going to the neurosurgeon this Thursday with a ruptured disc and pinched nerve complaints. I have tried everything to get myself back together, but there are some problems that just require more aggressive treatment.
I wish you luck at the doctor, please let me know what he/she tells you as I am curious.
Cheers!

[jst4shanell]

I have been getting decompression done for 4 months.  It hasn't helped.  It feels nice when i'm getting it done but does not take the pain away when I get off the table.  My doctor does the decompression with traction to open up the spine, along with massage and Graston for the muscle's because it becomes very hard to breathe.  Thank you for the resources.  I will look very closely into it.
thank you!

[ssjdecube]

Here is some advise. First off surgery should be your last option. Its permanent and you can never reverse it. Also, they don't have a very good success rate. If you want to check out some research go to www.chirofacts.info or directly to www.pubmed.gov

I would suggest getting decompreesion done first. Its a table you lay on and they strech out your vertebrae allowing nutrients to get in and you disc to heal itself. It usually doesn't totally go back to normall, but you can get out of pain. I would advise you to look around and see what people charge first. There are TONS of different decompression tables out there and they all do the same!! Most doctors that use the DRX9000 table charge more as the table costs well over $100,000.