Dockside Chat - Spine surgery :(

Tuesday August 17th I am having surgery for lower back upper hip pain that is very severe. I can't stand much less walk after about 2 or 3 mins of standing/walking. They found a ruptured disc between L-4-5 that they will burn the nerves off of and should fix this pain issue. I had an injection in that area a month or so ago and it killed the pain completely only lasted a week though. :(

Get married one Monday and the next Tuesday this I just hope it fixes my pain issues this week has been a Biach to say the least. I'm honestly looking forward to this procedure and well we will find out Tuesday and I'll post when I get home. Good thing this is an out patient surgery. :)

I had surgery similar to what your having. I had a buldging disk and had a partial disk disectomy. The doctor cut out about 3/4 of my disk. I still have pain but not as bad as before and nothing I can't live with. Hopefully you'll have the same or better out come. Let us know how it went.

Ortho or Neuro?

I had L5/S1 fusion ~4 years ago. The recovery is long, but thee surgerey was well worth it. Your pain will be gone when you wake up in the recovery room.

Listen to your doctor and PTs. I was able to go without pain meds 7 days after the surgery (they were too good...and they gave me 100 pills!). I would pop an advil here and there if I felt any pain I couldn't handle.

Best of luck to you,

Congratulations on getting married!

I had surgery similar to what your having. I had a buldging disk and had a partial disk disectomy. The doctor cut out about 3/4 of my disk. I still have pain but not as bad as before and nothing I can't live with. Hopefully you'll have the same or better out come. Let us know how it went.


Ditto from my end, still have pain from time to time, but nothing like the pain before hand. You'll be glad you had it done.:thumbsup:

Good luck with the procedure.

Listen to the PT. Proper recovery period is essential.

HI for how long have you had that pain i had the same pain and suffered for around 4 months was affraid of surgery with lots of rest slowly went away i just don't throw the cast net anymore good luck.

I'm with 101....spinal col. looks like a train wreck plus one ruptured disc. Pain mgmt. shots in the spine and oxycodone are delaying the surgery. Doc said that after surgery, I'd lose 40% of spinal movement due to the fusions, plus a very lengthly recovery. I might as well sell my boat if I do the surgery as it wouldn't get used. I'll wait until its unbearable!

Good luck with yours David. I'd have to have that done also prior to the major surgery. I wanna be 30 again.. :)

Aw geez Dave!!!!!
Dang, sorry to hear you have been in pain.
I truly hope all goes well for you.
I guess the honeymoon, at least portions of it, will have to wait....:grin:

Take your time getting back on the water, don't screw up and get impatient.

Dave,
Removing the pain is not going to correct the problem, right?
Pain is there to tell you something is wrong. Your Doctor is fixing the symptom, not the cause.
Could this not lead to the structural issue getting worse?

Living with back pain has become a way of life for a lot of us, it sucks.

Jeff

Thanks guys.

Yeah pain is horrible, I was in a car accident in 97 and I don't actually think this is from that not sure really. I had a crushed vertebra at T-5 from that and well no pain anylonger from that however I had other complications from that accident that put me on pain meds since then. Yeah they keep going up in strength about every two years and now I'm on Avinza 60mg twice a day. For those that don't know what Avinza is it is Morphine time released. Well now this isn't really working anymore. At least doesn't seem to be I don't want to think how bad this would be without it.

This bad hip/lowerback pain started to get bad this past December and has progressed since. We did direct injections into my hips several times they only lasted a few weeks. Then did a direct injection into my spine on the disc in question. Well that put me totally pain free for all of ONE WEEK. :roll: Best week I can remember in years :) (Marsha thought so too :grin:)

I started with the Pain management Dr about 4 months ago my regular Dr is an Internal Med guy and very good however he passed this on when the injections he gave me only lasted 2 weeks.

We tried switching off of the Avinza to Opana which is supposed to be more powerful than Avinza well no it isn't in my case didn't work at all. So back on the Avinza. This PM guy told me that my next step was the spine injection so we did that and one week later I was back to see him. Now it is to cut and burn the nerves coming off of the disc between L-4-5 which is the area with my bulged disc and I can honestly say that the PM Dr said that that disc doesn't look all that bad just a slight bulge however it is where my pain is originating from since the injection made me pain free for all of that one beautiful week.

He gives this procedure 50/50 chance at full pain free. He told me that the Dr's that came up with it give it 70% so it was up to me if I wanted to take a chance. Yes I do now if this doesn't work the next step will be full disc removal so for now I will hope and pray that his fixes this and all pain goes away.

I go in and get this done Tuesday at noon and will be home by 3 or 4 since it is an out patient surgery. Once I'm feeling up to it I'll be back on here to give an update.

Thanks again guy's for the kind words and support. I do hope to make a few trips this fall to Lake Erie and get on the big fall walleye :thumbsup: I have only put about 35 hours on my boat this whole year. :(

Dave,
Removing the pain is not going to correct the problem, right?
Pain is there to tell you something is wrong. Your Doctor is fixing the symptom, not the cause.
Could this not lead to the structural issue getting worse?

Living with back pain has become a way of life for a lot of us, it sucks.

Jeff

Jeff you might be correct on that. However when you can't stand or walk that is worse than getting rid of the pain. Yes I am over weight and loosing the weight will also help however you can't loose weight when you can't move ;?

I will add here that the structure of my spine is overall very good as well as my hips. This is a nerve thing and not structural.

Must have been one hell of a honeymoon!! Good Luck to ya - let us know how everything went!

I'm with you Dave, get rid of the pain then get on an exercise program, starting slowly, and stick with it.
Good luck, I wish you the best.

Jeff

good luck, i'm on the couch now, had knee surgery 2 days ago.

Good Luck Dave! I had spine surgery a year ago. I had stenosis and the leg pain was unbearable. I'm 80% better and the little pain I have once in a while, I treat with an Advil.

Jerseysport, Did you you get it replaced or scoped?

Good luck, surgery sucks..... just had 6 bypass surgery with a valve job....not fun, but getting better everyday....on advil now, morphine and codeine were horrendous and they were getting a little too good.... I got off that shit ASAP

Listen to the PT's spinal ops are pretty routine these days

Good Luck Dave! I had spine surgery a year ago. I had stenosis and the leg pain was unbearable. I'm 80% better and the little pain I have once in a while, I treat with an Advil.

Jerseysport, Did you you get it replaced or scoped?

lateral release with grafted lig to keep my knee cap from dislocating(pateller instability) (happens all the time). Also scraping of arthritis, fixed a meniscus tear, and cleaned up the cartilage. This is basically my last ditch effort from getting a full replacement.

I had micro-discectomy 3 or 4 years ago by a neurosurgeon. I had no choice. I had severe pain in my left leg. I lost 100% of the reflex (hammer to the knee) in my left leg and it was rapidly shrinking and losing strength. I played golf 3 weeks after the surgery. Most of the time I am pain free, but when I over do it I still get a mild pain in my left leg. Good luck.:thumbsup:

Fused L3 thru S-1... your operation is routine and hopefuly doesnt require a foler catheter, but if it does make sure they insert the drum stick while your under, or else plan on singing whistling dixie during that procedure :o

Don't remember all the L-number details but the procedure I had about 12 years ago was (I think) a "lower lumbar laminectomy". Struggled to walk more than a couple yards at a time prior to the surgery, walked about a mile the day after I got out of the hospital. Hope you have similar success tomorrow!

Hmm what is a foler catheter and a drum stick sounds like dinner :)

I can tell you that the injection to my disc was no picnic hell the injection to kill the pain for the epidural was bad in itself. :o

The PM Dr is doing the procedure and has done many of them with good success. However he still only give it a 50/50 chance of complete pain relief. I can tell you this pain is so bad I can't stand or walk for more than 3 mins with out having to sit at least while sitting it doesn't hurt nor while I am sleeping. But yeah the pain starts in my upper hips/lower back and then goes down both legs. So the PM Dr will burn the nerves from both sides of the disc.

I will be awake for the surgery which I like I have a very thick neck and am hard to intabate actually had to do one totally awake once and I can tell you that won't happen again. :nono: I would take an open heart surgery awake before going thru an awake intabation again. Hell they did my umbillical hernia surgery while I was awake great no problems I talked with them the whole time. When I felt anything I told them and instantly felt nothing went great. :thumbsup:

I know rehab is going to be tough and probably the most important part so I will do what I need to and hope I can control pain in the future with Advil and get off of the Morphine. 12 years on heavy pain pills needs to go.

Don't remember all the L-number details but the procedure I had about 12 years ago was (I think) a "lower lumbar laminectomy". Struggled to walk more than a couple yards at a time prior to the surgery, walked about a mile the day after I got out of the hospital. Hope you have similar success tomorrow!

Mine is the disc between L 4-5 Sounds good I sure hope I get the same results.

Good luck David. :thumbsup:

Hmm what is a foler catheter and a drum stick sounds like dinner :)

I can tell you that the injection to my disc was no picnic hell the injection to kill the pain for the epidural was bad in itself. :o

The PM Dr is doing the procedure and has done many of them with good success. However he still only give it a 50/50 chance of complete pain relief. I can tell you this pain is so bad I can't stand or walk for more than 3 mins with out having to sit at least while sitting it doesn't hurt nor while I am sleeping. But yeah the pain starts in my upper hips/lower back and then goes down both legs. So the PM Dr will burn the nerves from both sides of the disc.

I will be awake for the surgery which I like I have a very thick neck and am hard to intabate actually had to do one totally awake once and I can tell you that won't happen again. :nono: I would take an open heart surgery awake before going thru an awake intabation again. Hell they did my umbillical hernia surgery while I was awake great no problems I talked with them the whole time. When I felt anything I told them and instantly felt nothing went great. :thumbsup:

I know rehab is going to be tough and probably the most important part so I will do what I need to and hope I can control pain in the future with Advil and get off of the Morphine. 12 years on heavy pain pills needs to go.

Are you talking about a Radio Frequency Ablation? Commonly called a nerve Burn?

My Gal yes that is what they will be doing.

Best of luck to ya Dave, take it slow after. Youll do just fine.

Good luck. :thumbsup:

Best of luck Dave. I had the L4 L5 also. the "shell" of the disc split and to "squirt" from it pinched the nerve. I was immobile for 2 months. Then the "squirt" died and pulled back. I did traction for the 2 months that I was down. After I was able to get up There was little pain except when my arms were extended in front of me. That was in '95 and if I lift something heavy or do anything that compresses my spinal column I get a little burn for a short time but other than that I consider myself recovered. I hate to say it, but for your long term health and back you will have to loose some pounds. I know you already said it, but I think that may be most of the trouble. I'm sure I speak for many when I say we want you around for a long time. I don't know you except from THT, but that doesn't matter. Do what is necessary and hang around for a while.
Mike

Yeah Mike I want to be here too for a long time and I'm sure my new wife does as well.

I use to weigh about 220 before I was in my car accident in 97 and broke my back got a compression fracture on T-5 and when that happened I had all kinds of issues and well then balooned up to just a tad over 500lbs. Now I'm down around 335 so I'm happy about that but lately I can't do anything to get more off. Sure I will get some surgery down the road to get rid of the "extra" skin which will help but not the rest of what I need to loose. I would like to drop another 50 or so and can do it once I can get mobile. No problem I bought a bike and have a wife that loves to bike ride and dance so once I am out of pain I'm game :)

Hey too many fishing trips to go on before I head to meet my maker. :thumbsup: Oh and most of all of the sunsets with my beautiful new bride :grin:

Oh and I have hunted and fished your area for many years. I lived in St Martinsville for a while but Hurricane Andrew chased me out. I'll be back down there in the near future and maybe we can hookup and do some fishing.

Hey Beenie I wanted to show you a pic of me before I got in my accident and got fat. Here is me and my Grand Champion Golden Retriever. The first one in the UKC. Sam was one hell of a dog. I sure miss him. :(

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/17/l_2807686d52215355d6b229cabe51f302.jpg

Ok guy's leaving in one hour I'll get back on later today to give an update. Thanks for all of the well wishes. Once this is done back to my previous weight in that picture above :grin: :thumbsup:

How'd it go, David?

Gotta wait for the drugs to wear off enough to post something I guess.

Praying for the best.


.

My best wishes might be belated, but they are none the less just the same.
I hope everything turned out very well for you David..........how you feeling?

Yeah man, how did ya do? Hopefully all went as planned.

Hey guy's I'm hurting quite a bit. Turns out they did this to SI instead of L4-5 disc. The reason he said was when he injected my SI area I got 5 weeks of relief and the L4-5 only one week. So I was mistaken on that.

Now for the procedure. Holy mother of God very painful to say the least. I couldn't see what was going on but short version is injected my SI area (buttocks) to numb them which hurt bad enough itself but once they were numb he inserted this probe I think and worked pretty hard to do so along my SI area by viewing it on Xray and then once it was in place did a burn on 4 different nerves I guess because there were 4 different burns on each side. Total time was about 2 hours. I guess because I was at one time about 500lbs I have pretty tough ass :roll: he actually said he was about to bail on the first cheek. :( however he stayed with it and came up with a different way to do the right cheek and it went pretty fast maybe 30 mins.

Once they started the "burn" it would get warm then hot and then actually burn like hell in my hip which is where my pain was/is so we knew he was in the right nerve area. He told me that I needed to let him know each time where the pain was because it could have easily been in my lower leg from the knee down which would have been a bad thing. That never happened :) . Anyway since I got such good burns on each of the 4 times on both sides he believes that this should work out well in the long run.

When I got home and the novacaine wore off I was in a good deal of pain so I have Vicodin to take for that and take two every 4 hours or so now about every 6 hours so getting better I guess. Having some leg weakness now as well as pain in both my hips where it use to be as well as in my ass cheeks, he said that was to be expected and should be about 2-3 weeks to actually start feeling some relief. He did say I will probably hurt more in the meantime than I did before the procedure. :o He was right dammit Total recovery time is 6-8 weeks.

So I guess I will have to take it easy for the next few days as things heal up from the litteral Ass kicking he gave me :roll: He did admit it was a brutal one and did appologize for it (Gee thanks Doc). Now to hope that I am in the 50% that don't ever have any pain again from going thru this and I'll be very happy. Time will tell.

I do want to thank all of you guy's for your kind words and thoughts you are truly a great family to be a member of. :thumbsup:

Dave, Glad to hear things went well. Hang in there. You'll be as good as new.

In 6-8 weeks you will be 10' tall and bullet-proof.....................

for about 5-7 months unless you are one of the lucky few where the nerve will not grow back. Be carefull not to act too young at that point.

Since you have PT scheduled, suspect he is trying spine stabilization in that area. Very effective based on your age and level of comittment post PT. Best to you.\

PS- Any and all weight you can shed will help you.

Dave, will your new bride be keeping you boat in good running order:grin:
Someone has to run it now and then:)

Tell her to take it easy on you, no tomfoolery at first;)

Glad to hear your on the road to recovery:thumbsup:

I use the Emoticons just for you, we know how much you like them:roll

Get better, you have fish to catch;)

Jeff