440ex, thanks for the input.

 

Hey no problem at all and with all the people I have seen talked into various surgeries they could have avoided only to help keep the "specialist" fat and happy I can honestly say I am happy to add to the thread etc.

Oddly between when I wrote the original post and now I had spoke with an old friend who I have not seen in a few years, and his horror story with back trouble would sit with some of the worst we have seen here.

Poor SOB got an infection from a non back related procedure and it somehow settled in his mid back (t8 -t9) and as it continued to get worse and grow it was actually causing his vertabrea to fracture. The doctors couldnt figure out his pain as there wasnt any positive results from xray etc and thought he was just after more pain killers and wrote him off as a junkie.

Wasnt till after a year of suffering with the continuing increase of damage and pain that they finally did an mri and found the problem.

Not sure what there looking at doing in the future if anything but that totally suks.

 

A couple more procedures that can be done as an out patient are IDET. This is were they run a small wire around the nerve and apply heat to it. The heat will nmb the nerve and will sometimes give releif. It is suppose to be about 80% sucesseful but I was one of the 20% it doesn't help. Another is a new procedure they are just starting to do in the U.S call Fiber Sealant. They inject a substance that is like we already have in out body which makes scabs. They inject it around the tears in the disc and it helps seal them to stop the leakage. I got a small amount of relief from this but turns out I have a lot of tears in two disc so it would take a few more visits and there would still be a chance I wouldn't get much relief just because of the damage I have. I've found that lifting and most exercises don't cause me more pain but instead setting for extended time is what causes the most pain. I've tried the ciropractor and stretching devices and they cause me pain and if their not done exactly right they end up causeing the tears to get longer. Maybe tomarrow someone will come up with a cure for us, never can tell.

 

First how old are you. I am 21 and i played high school football and college football, along with other sports. I now have a ruptured disk in my L4-L5 and my L5-1. Both of my disk are copletly dead. I have no more fluid in them and i now have fluid around my joints. I have gone to about 5 doctors now and finally found one that wont do surgery. I think that surgery is the worst thing to do. My grandmother just died from back surgery. You need to find another doctor that will make you do more therapy. If worse comes to worse get some cortozne shots and just work throught it. Trust me i know that it sucks, but i think that it is a much healthier and safer methods then surgery. I mean that is a major part of your everyday life. If one thing goes wrong you could be in trouble. Make sure that you just think it over. Good luck Nick

 

Thanks Nick. Texas, the IDET sounds interesting, I'll have to give my doc a call and get his opinion. The cortozone shots didnt work, I had six. But I was supposed to have my back surgery by now, so you guys must be giving me second thoughts. I rode my quad for the first time in 5 months, It hurt pretty good. I ran out once to the hill without my brace on, dumb ***! Didnt take long to get back to the trailer and get it back on.

 

I know a few that have had back surgery and got complete relif and I know some that are in even more pain after the surgery, it's a hit and miss type thing in my opinion. I'm in my forties and have had this problem since I was fifteen after a motorcycle wreck. Through the years Other things have happened to my back which worsened the damage ad about six years ago it got really bad. I can still do my regular everyday stuff and am still able to exercise but I can't sleep without some type of sleeping aid. I've been on medication for the last six years and I think the lack of sleep and the medication together is causing me some other problems. I ususally get about 4 hrs sleep on a good night and zero on a bad night. What really sucks is the nights I finally do fall asleep and an hour later the phone rings and I have to go to work for a couple of hrs. Once I get home I can't go back to sleep and the rest of the day I'm just in a daze, not good when your working around high voltage. I wish I could offer you some advice that would make the pain go away tomarrow but as you can tell from all these post everyones pain is different and it responds to treatment differently. So far the injections didn't help me, the fiber sealant didn't help, therapy didn't help, exercise hasn't hurt me but hasn't helped the pain either, ciropractors din't help, accupucture didn't help, hypnosis din't help (what a crock), massage therapy didn't help (but the lady sure was good looking!!!), the IDET helped a little. Even the pain medication is starting to not help. If anyone finds a cure post it. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we open to any advice. Wish you all luck.

 

Jed call chirochris he gave me a couple of exercises to do and told me what shoes to switch to. My back is feeling way better already.



MrHorsepower

 

thanks Misterhp,

i was hoping you would reply, i didnt want to name names of people on the forum that i have helped..

i hope people email me, i really feal i can help them..there are a few others i helped avoid surgery...maybe they will respond..

again anyone interested please contact me..

 

When I got my MRI the doctor said, yes your in bad shape, but come see me when your pain has got you thinking of suicide. Seriously, he said that. So for now I guess its pills and lifting smart.

 

I found the first half of that very interesting because I have the same issues with sitting and actually feel better with any exercise or normal movements etc. Problem is that most people including some doctors just dont get it, and we have to ignore the weird looks and stuff cause only we know what were going thru and what works.

Now the second part is telling us how different your cause of your problem is (multiple herniations in one disc) and also how your treatment would mostlikely be different too.

Something we all have to think about is that all our injuries or actual problems that are causing our pain can be very different from each other, and whats works for you may not work for another. Also some of the proceedures mentioned treat the effect (pain) and others treat the cause (bulging discs putting pressure on the nerve, herniated and degenerated discs allowing the vertabrea to compress onto the nerve etc etc), and they are very different too.

So dont discount a treatment because it didnt work for someone else, but think about how it will effect you and possibaly help you or not based on what it does and if it will be treating the cause or effect.

I have a neighbor who has been thru so many proceedures I honestly feel bad for the guy. He is more than a few years older than the older members in this thread but has been suffering for many years. He has had various surgeries and the best of them only gave him temp relief.

One thing he had done that really worried me was where they partially severed some nerves in an attempt to see if they could actually cut the one that was giving him the most pain. Scarry stuff for sure.

If we want to really help ourselves we need to check out everything avail, and no just trust that our Dr has the right answers. Most times these guys dont have all the info and sometimes are so tied into a certain way of doing things that they just create a routine and you fall into it, and thats not best for you.