Can anyone talk to me about the effectiveness of disc decompression? I had it four months ago on December 20th, the post op pain was treated with morphine for ten days, I came home on day 12, and remained immobile in agony for further three months. My problem was prolapsed discs L4 S1 trapped sciatic nerve, 5 years agony, after two MRI's they decided on surgery. I had to go back in for spinal epidural nerve root block because the surgery made it worse. Anyone experienced this? I have made a little progress re: pain, about 50% better, not good enough. As soon as I try to do the normal things I did before the problem & pain, such as drive a little, walk a little, sit a while in a theatre, hoover a little, the pain comes back and knocks me over.  I need to get back to work, having earned zilch since December 14th. Best answer so far came from Amy, thanks Amy!Shall follow her advice, as she had her op quite near my hometown. All I read it bad news, wish I'd never had it done now. Thanks!
208012
Courtyard worker.  I see folks like you in my office frequently.  Your story is so common there is a syndrome named after it- failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS).  Unfortunately you are probably going to have these problems to some degree or another for the rest of your life.  Far too often people jump right into drugs and surgery and fail to explore the other options that are far less invasive and, frankly more effective (70% of back surgeries fail).  There are literally hundreds of options and you have already mentioned one, decompression.  If you had a spinal fusion, which it sounds like you did, it's too late for that.  They bridged the spinal joints with bone and now there is to joint to decompress.  The best option you have now is chiropractic (it was your best option five years ago too, but it's a little late for that now).  If you had L4-S1 fused, the problem you are facing now is that L3 is having to do a ton of work... a lot more work than it was designed to do.  Chiropractic can help to make sure that L3 stays healthy and isn't the next to go.  Your Doctor (chiropractic not medical) should also ensure that your pelvis is free of distortion.  This will help.\n\nDr. B.H.
463289
Much sympathy. I ruptured a disk doing Akido when I was 21. The doctors gave me exercises to do and told me to take ibuprofen. There's surgery that can "repair" the damage, so to speak, but at the loss of a certain amount of flexibility (they have to "fuse" the two vertabrae together), but they are somewhat reluctant to do it. Been putting up with the pain now for 29 years.\n\nOnly advice I can give is, if you really want to have the surgery raise bloody hell about it... switch doctors if the one you have won't do it. It's the only way to get results. Pain will be gone but you might not be able to touch your toes.
339100
It has worked for my level 8 chronic back pain. Like another poster mentioned though it can be expensive as you'll need repeat treatments for the effects to last. I got much more releif than I expected form just one treatment. But it only lasted about 2 days. \n\nvance
480584
My honest opinion for you is that it is going to suck for a bit.  You will have discomfort at first usually well controlled with pain medications.  You will also have to be wired shut for a few weeks (usually for about 6 weeks) where you will have to consume mostly a liquid diet.  Afterward, your muscles will be sore and tight. BUT, I PROMISE YOU, IT WILL ALL BE WORTH IT IN THE END!!!!!  I have seen and been part of a few of these cases and actually had a friend who had it done about a year ago and everyone that I have asked, would do it again in a heartbeat!  Hope that this proves helpful, good luck with it!
591292
you just answered one of my questions and decided to check out some of the questions you posted, which iam now glad i did. when i was 17 , me and my twin were diognosed with scoliosis( curvature of the spin) we both needed to have the harringtons rods put in to staighten our spines. which were placed on either side of our spine about a foot long apeice. it was a tramatic sergury but i thank god everyday i had it. no more pain, i can do anything no limitations except for now i sit up real staight ...ha ha.., and yes if i hadnt had the surgery i wouldnt be here today. the  curve was starting to push against my heart and liver and if that happened i wouild have died. so i thank god everyday for doctors.
207341
I know someone who has.  The actual operation isn't painful as you are heavily drugged.  Painkillers are given to you after the operation.  The afternath is painful, but doesn't last long. I would take 2 weeks off of work.  Do it though, because in the long run, you'll be thankful!
245798
I tried REIKI. I went from wanting small doses of morphine to not needing anything at all. There are no guarantees with anything and don't EVER give up your regular treatments, but I don't thnk REIKI will hurt and its worth a try. I have inflamatory osteo arthritis and fibromyalgia.
10806
First of all my heart goes out to you and your granddaughter.  I was diagnosed in 1999 with ACM1 have not had surgery but deal daily with the pressure and other symptoms.  I don't know what to say about the pressure after a decompression surgery. I can tell you when the pressure is built up it is very painful and one wants to do whatever they can to be rid of it.  Making lifestyle changes and having appropriate pain medicine and a knowledgable Neurologist/Neurosurgeon goes a long way.
434942
I was in the same boat, 2 surgeries and all was well...crashed racing again then......had 2 world class neurosurgeons that wouldn't touch me saying surgery at this point will damage more tissue. After about 6 years of nasty death inducing pain, it did fuse and go away to a bearable point.\n\nSince then they have come up with a papaya injection. It was too new when I was hurt but may be an option, check into it. It dissolves the disc causing trouble and if in the hands of a skilled Dr... I think it would be the way to go. Few do the procedure  though.\n\nTake care....\n\n\n====================
525943
YESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!  ME!  I had the Spinal Cord Stimulator implanted and it helped me so much.  Unfortunately my body HATED it and rejected it and I had to have it removed.  My surgeon said he had never seen a reaction like mine, so I know it's not normal.\n\nI have had chronic sciatica down my left leg and into my foot for 14 years.  I had surgery to correct a ruptured disc, but it took so long for the doctors to diagnose the bad disc that by then I had damaged the nerve.  Surgery helped with some of the back pain but never helped with the leg pain.  My most recent MRI shows scar tissue wrapped around the nerve root. Surgery really isn't an option because it will just cause more scar tissue to form.\n\nI wish you much luck and good health.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
638924
There is another solution without operation: Go for a manual one-time treatment called Atlasprofilax. The effect is, that the pressure on the discs is distributed much better - so the herniated discs may recover completely.\n\nJust - the treatment is available in California and Europe only, costing approx. 220 dollars. It's really worth travelling far.
180396
well i know first hand what he is going thru, i also had surgery in L4 and now the scar tissue is hardened and pushing on the nerves, it really does hurt, i was told that further operations would only further the scaring, he could try going to a pain clinic and get the injections in his back, i have done that but it didnt help me much and other people i have talked to swears by it,i also took the soma and codien among other crap like that,i now have 4 discs in my back shot due to an injury last summer, but the pain clinics can and do help, they know what is best in your personal situation, and give proper meds that dont make you feel crapy, as far as the tens meters they only annoyed me, and did nothing to ease the pain,i have lived with pain since 1993 and all one can do is to try and cope with it,one has a hard time sleeping when u hurt so bad\ni would suggest he go to a pain clinic cos they are so much more advanced nowadays\n\ngood luck\n\nADD;\ni also have two discs in my neck removed and held together with a titanium plate, ,i waited to long to get medical help, i hope he dont keep putting this off cos it will only get worse
517394
Elisabeth, also, please read my answer to the question that you posted in "Other--Health".\n\n1. Definitely\n2. During the first days after surgery, the pain was fleeting and was most acute when I was moved or when I moved "wrong".  An example was when they turned me in bed in the hospital.  Once I got home, I really had no pain that couldn't be handled with OTC Tylenol.  In fact the pain meds that were prescribed made me nauseous so I didn't even fill the script the second time around and just relied on OTC tylenol and tylenol-PM at nite.  \n3.  Since I had the hips done separately, I was still in bad shape a couple of months after hip #1.  However, 5 months later I had hip #2 done and was walking with one crutch by the 4th week and no walking aid at all by 2 months.  I received permission to drive at week #5 for both hips.  I no longer work, but I feel that I could have returned to my old job full-time by about the 6th week after surgery #2, maybe even a bit earlier.  I was cooking our meals, and doing the laundry by the 2nd week (all is on the main floor).  I had to hire house cleaning for about 2 months as I couldn't really push a vacuum or get down on the floor yet.\n4.  You bet!  It gave me my life back and made a new person out of me.  During the years preceding surgery my world kept shrinking.  I could hardly bear to go shopping unless there was a shopping cart to lean on.  Standing in a check-out line for more than a minute killed me.  If I tried to travel, I ended up staying in the hotel because I couldn't stand the walking.  I was truly a mess.
585321
JS,\nI'm somewhat familiar with your situation as I'm pretty much in the same boat.  I'm 54 and have degenerative disk disease (DDD) with 11 herniated and/or bulging disks in my upper and lower back.  It sounds like you might have the same thing along with the scoliosis.  Have you had an MRI of your upper back?  It's not a big deal knowing it, since there's no cure or treatment for DDD, in fact they're not sure what causes it.  The bottom line with DDD is there's nothing they can do but treat the pain.  Injuries to the spinal cord or the nerves that attach to the spinal cord do not heal themselves nor will they "reroute" themselves as other nerves in your body sometimes can.  With spinal nerve damage, once it happens, you've got it forever.\n\nI've got a damaged nerve on the left side of the T3/T4 disk that's been causing me constant pain for over 3 years now.  I was coughing, of all things, and blew the disk out, which crushed or dented the nerve.  I've been in constant, terrible pain ever since.  Every hour, every day, it hasn't let up, not even for a second.  There's no "comfortable position," no way to ease that "ice pick in the back" pain I have.  It just "is" and it takes over every aspect of your life.  Sometimes I do something, move a certain way, and bingo, the pain shoots up near the top of the scale.  Sometimes it goes back to "normal" (around a 3 or 4 on the pain scale) after a few minutes and sometimes it stays up there around an 8 or 9 for two or three days. Sometimes I can do some particular thing without making it worse and then I do the same thing a week later and I'm back in the jackpot.  It seems there's no reason or rhyme to it.  \n\nI've had 5 Epidural Steroid Injections (ESI), which unfortunately did nothing but give me diabetes, one more thing I have to deal with.  Ok, I should say that the docs think the ESI *did* work, in that it caused the disk to shrink just as it was supposed to, but unfortunately the physical damage to the nerve was already done and that's what is causing the chronic pain.  \n\nI'm taking some pretty strong pain killers, morphine and codeine (can you spell "addict"?), plus I've just started Lyrica.  I tried Neurontin a couple of years ago but it didn't help.  I'm hoping the Lyrica will help this time and maybe I can get off the morphine, which, for one thing doesn't work all that well but also it has some bad side effects.  Mine aren't as bad as some I've talked to, but they're bad enough.  Yes, I know it could be worse and while I have a great deal of sympathy for others that are worse off than me, hearing about the plight of someone else doesn't make me feel any better.\n  \nI'm also taking some stuff called Zanaflex (generic name: Tizanidine) which, while it has some side effects, really helped when I started getting extremely sharp, radiating pains that went from the damaged nerve at the T3/T4 site, down the back of my left arm and up the back of my neck.  The Zanaflex stopped the pain right away and it's one of the best meds I've ever taken when it comes to doing what it's supposed to.  I stopped taking it for a day and the pains came back, so I know it's working.  Zanaflex is a muscle relaxer and apparently the pain in my arm and neck were the result of muscle spasms generated by the nerve damage in my back.\n\nThe biggest problem I have with it is that it knocks me out cold!  I've talked to others that have had different, intolerable, side effects, so it's not going to work for everyone.  I'm supposed to take 4mg three times a day but instead I take two of them (8mg) before I go to bed.  It has a dual effect of stopping the pain plus it's a fantastic sleep aid - but you better not change your mind about sleeping after you take it!  \n\nOne of the best things about it is that it
44784
I had a herniated disk in my neck at the C4/C5 level. I lived with it for 7 years. In those seven years, I went to acupuncturists, chiropractors, went through physical therapy, had medical massages, and many, many pain pills.\n\nWhen the pain gets to the point where you can't sleep through the night and you are having a hard time walking, then it is time for surgery.\n\nAs with any surgery, do your research. With this surgery, the surgeon is dealing with your spinal cord. Find the top 5 neurosurgeons in your county or state (depending on how big your state is) and go to one of them. I was fortunate. My surgical team consisted of two of the top 5 in NY state. The whole team and hospital were wonderful.\n\nBecause I waited 7 years...I have permanent nerve damage that I wouldn't have if I had gone sooner. Do you have pinched nerves because of the herniation? You don't mention how long you have dealth with the pain, so just keep this in mind.\n\nAlso, I'm not sure if surgery on the lower back is the same as on the upper back/neck area, but I had to pretty much learn how to walk again after having my neck worked on. It was very slow at first, but when I went home from the hospital, I had to go up three flights of stairs to get to my apartment, not an easy hurdle. \n\nThey cut through the front of my neck to get to the back, pretty freaky thought, huh? Honestly though, the surgeon said that from a surgeon's point of view, it was easier and safer to do the surgery that way.\n\nI wish you the best of luck and hope you at the very least consider having an MRI to see how close the herniation is to your spinal cord. You do not want to be paralyzed just because you were trying to prevent surgery.
118515
LOL!! this is great. Whenever we are told, DON'T do something isn't it funny how it triggers are curiosity and we do it anyway. \n\nI had a spinal epidural done for a ruptured disk. The first thing the doctor told me when they wheeled me into the room is don't look back at what I am doing. \n\nWELL I looked back and saw this HUGE NEEDLE. I almost fainted when I saw it, the needle was LONG , he said , I told you not to look back, this has to go all the way into your spine. THat was the worst experience ever. I was ready to faint by the time the procedure was over because I was visualizing this huge needle working its way into my spine. \n\nDon't look down\nDon't look back \nDon't go in there\n\n\nooooooooooooooooooh :( they say curiosity kills the cat. :( Poor little cat. LOL!! He's fine ;) He's next to me wanting a bite of my ham sandwich :D
104656
herniated disc 10-12-01. GET A LAWYER! the fact the injury happened on the job is the real issue, not weather or not you are working there now. If wc paid once they will continue until your doctor releases you. If you need surgery find as much about the surgeon as possible. Alot of times ins companies give you to the lowest bidder so be careful. Keep in touch if you need anything, I'm on messenger. Its good to know that you did report it, and start treatment. Chris 26 m GA