Back Surgery or No Back Surgery?

[squibber]

Just wondering if you or someone you know was in a similar situation.

Six months ago, I developed pain in my hip. An x-ray showed my hip joint was OK.  I went for physical therapy and it slowly helped for the most part.  A month ago I developed sciatic nerve pain down my right leg. I was the approved for an MRI.

The MRI shows that I have Severe Inner Channel scoleosis in my lower back.  My spinal cord is very narrow between L4 and L5. It is being compressed by my backbone.

My spine doctor recommended surgery but he wants me to go home and think about it as it is a serious decision.

The surgery involves a rod and screws into my backbone between L4 and L5. There is a chance I will be in a lot of pain after surgery and recovery time is 3-4 months. There is no guarantee it will relieve the pain and pain relief could be 25%, 50% or 100%. There is a small chance or nerve damage during surgery or an infection.

Currently my pain profile has changed. I don't have shooting pain down my right leg to my foot but I have shooting pains from my lower back into both buttock areas. I would give the pain level a 3 out of 10. My right leg feels a little more numb and heavy footed than my left leg. It kind of feels a little asleep.  I'm afraid the pain may increase suddenly or the sciatica may come back. It's hard to sleep with sciatic nerve pain.  In the meantime, I'm still doing physical therapy.

I'm not going to make a decision off of your comments but your thoughts are welcome.

[Ed Vette]

Get another opinion and do some research as to the best in the field. In the meantime, if you do a lot of sitting and you keep your wallet in your back pocket, consider moving it to the front pocket.

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Sounds like a similar situation that I had, only I couldn't even walk when taken to the ER. After a lot of prescribed drugs, an MRI, I was told I needed a laminectomy on my L4 spinal disc. My sciatica (especially on my right side) produced incredible pain. Anyway, the laminectomy surgery went well, and I spent the next few months going to physical therapy, but I could still work and walk to get around...without searing pain

That was years ago and every now and then, my sciatica flares up, but nothing like prior to the surgery. To this day, I have almost no feeling in my middle toe on my right foot (feels like a sock is bunched up in my shoe), but I can do everything I used to do...well, except now that I'm over 70, I can't do a lot of things I used to do. My surgeon told me that when a nerve is in constant pain, it eventually starts to "die off" or something like that and will stop signalling your brain that your body is in peril and needs fixing...which is the purpose of a nerve...I guess (I'm no doctor)

The procedure you are talking about is different from a laminectomy, as I didn't have any screws or a rod put in my spine. They just cut out part of vertebral bone in order to take pressure off the nerve that triggers the largest nerve in your body, the sciatica, that runs from your lower spine, through the buttocks, down the leg all the way to your feet (as you well know)

At the time I had mine done (1995), there was an option that cost many times more than a laminectomy, and that was an experimental procedure that cost up to a million dollars (and insurance doesn't cover such treatment) and was only being used on professional athletes, in which they replace a disc with a spring-loaded titanium "shock absorber" (for lack of a better term) disc. It was experimental surgery back in the 90's, so it might be routine 30 years later for all I know

Regardless, I wish you luck as it is a painful ride and will require months of rehab...although, if you have a desk job, you should be able to work (might need a cane to get around for a while), but if your job is of the physical type, you'll probably miss work for a few months...maybe less if you're in relative good shape

Hope that helps

[ozzie]

Sorry, I have no first hand experience with this, but I agree with Ed, DEFINITELY get a second and even a third opinion.
My first thought is always to go with a non surgical route if possible.
Good luck.

[Sem]

I also have no experience with major back issues so my opinion should be taken with that in mind. First, I'm sorry you're going through this Squibber, I hope you find relief. I would agree others on getting a another opinion(s). Personally I think I would go to great lengths exhausting any and all non-surgical procedures, including lifestyle changes, weight loss, PT, acupuncture, even chiropractor visits, before I would look to surgery. Best of luck.

[LennG]

Squib

 I worked for 35 years at a physical job and had enough back problems during that time to fill a very large cart, but nothing that lasted more than a week at a time. I did deal with sciatica for almost a year, but one day I woke up and it was gone. Even my doctor couldn't figure that one out.

My daughter-in-law, who was a very large lady, also had problems with her back and after many years opted for surgery. I don't know exactly what exact type of surgery but overall it helped her some, but she is still dealing with back pain, just not the dibilitating one she previously had.
I also have a very good friend, also more overweight than the average person. She has been in pain for years and was told she needed surgery. She triedeverything to avoid it, but finally after eyars of trying other options, she just had the surgery a couple of weeks ago, so I cannot comment on how it went, as of yet.

As the others have already said, you need other opinions, more than just 2. There are so many options out there, some legit and some quacksters, but before any surgery, as long as you are mobile and can tolerate the pain a bit, I would explore every option available before making a decision.

[gregf]

Hey Squib. My wife had the surgery 15 years ago with the set screws to hold things in place, and a cage in-between to grow bone to fuse together. It worked great.  Unfortunately I did not second guess the doctor and she got hooked on pain meds for about 5  years. When she got off the pain meds she was totally fine. 
     With that said. I would try two things  first that worked amazing for me. "How to treat your own back" by Robin McKenzie.  Takes less than an hour to read.  I threw out my back every year for 25 years.  Once I understood why,it's been over 12 years and have not had an issue since.
     The other option is accupuncture. This has worked amazing for me for neck pain. 
     Good luck!

[Bill Brown]

My story. Several years ago I was having back pain and at some point I started to limp. I didn't even realize that but it was true. I went to a spine doctor and he told me that I had spiral stenosis. A narrowing of the spiral column. I went in for surgery and I was told he cleaned the column to give my spinal cord a bit more room. I can't really tell you what he really did but I have a 10" scar that tells me that he opened me up pretty good. The surgery did help. I no longer limped but I still had discomfort in my back every day although not as bad.

Here is the amazing thing about my back. A few year ago after sitting on my butt for quite a few years as a retired gentleman I had gained a lot of weight and was looking for something to help me drop a few and I  came across a program called DDP Yoga. DDP stands for Diamond Dallas Page who was a wrestler who broke his back and developed this program to help him get back to the ring after being told that he wouldn't ever wrestle again. It was a program that looked like it  was a workout that might help. I probably watched the promotional video on YouTube several times and told my wife that it might just be a waste of 50 bucks but I wanted to give it a try. Long story short  after about 4 or 5 weeks of doing this DDPY I had dropped a few pounds but what was the most amazing thing was I noticed that my back was pain free. One of the things that DDP says during his workout is that stretching the spine holds back the hands of time. I'm not going to say that it would solve your problems Sqib, but I swear by this program. Here is the ad that I saw.

https://youtu.be/bIXOo8D9Qsc?si=lr1DSSdvkAlOZd0S


Bill

And just as a side note, my weight went from 295 to 217.

[squibber]

Bill,

Interesting video. Thanks!

[LennG]

My story. Several years ago I was having back pain and at some point I started to limp. I didn't even realize that but it was true. I went to a spine doctor and he told me that I had spiral stenosis. A narrowing of the spiral column. I went in for surgery and I was told he cleaned the column to give my spinal cord a bit more room. I can't really tell you what he really did but I have a 10" scar that tells me that he opened me up pretty good. The surgery did help. I no longer limped but I still had discomfort in my back every day although not as bad.

Here is the amazing thing about my back. A few year ago after sitting on my butt for quite a few years as a retired gentleman I had gained a lot of weight and was looking for something to help me drop a few and I  came across a program called DDP Yoga. DDP stands for Diamond Dallas Page who was a wrestler who broke his back and developed this program to help him get back to the ring after being told that he wouldn't ever wrestle again. It was a program that looked like it  was a workout that might help. I probably watched the promotional video on YouTube several times and told my wife that it might just be a waste of 50 bucks but I wanted to give it a try. Long story short  after about 4 or 5 weeks of doing this DDPY I had dropped a few pounds but what was the most amazing thing was I noticed that my back was pain free. One of the things that DDP says during his workout is that stretching the spine holds back the hands of time. I'm not going to say that it would solve your problems Sqib, but I swear by this program. Here is the ad that I saw.

https://youtu.be/bIXOo8D9Qsc?si=lr1DSSdvkAlOZd0S


Bill

And just as a side note, my weight went from 295 to 217.

Bill

 Funny story about DDP, I used to go to a chiropractor who treated him. He had pics of him all over his wall. I can't say if this was before this program of his or not, but he was, at that time, a regular at this office. AND, this DDP program you speak of was presented on Shark Tank a while ago with DDP as the main guy. NO one offered him a deal, but I guess it works.

[Bob In PA]

Squib: Get a 2nd opinion. In olden days I'd also advise not mentioning you already have a 1st opinion.

These days, however, that will almost undoubtedly prove to be impossible (the Age Of The Internet).

The 1st thing the new doctor will do is read the report of your current doc and that could produce a bias.

You want a TRUE second opinion.  So I suggest taking a ride to another locale (some other urban center).

Do all you can to make it as unlikely as possible that the two surgeons know each other.

Bob

[MightyGiants]

Just wondering if you or someone you know was in a similar situation.

Six months ago, I developed pain in my hip. An x-ray showed my hip joint was OK.  I went for physical therapy and it slowly helped for the most part.  A month ago I developed sciatic nerve pain down my right leg. I was the approved for an MRI.

The MRI shows that I have Severe Inner Channel scoleosis in my lower back.  My spinal cord is very narrow between L4 and L5. It is being compressed by my backbone.

My spine doctor recommended surgery but he wants me to go home and think about it as it is a serious decision.

The surgery involves a rod and screws into my backbone between L4 and L5. There is a chance I will be in a lot of pain after surgery and recovery time is 3-4 months. There is no guarantee it will relieve the pain and pain relief could be 25%, 50% or 100%. There is a small chance or nerve damage during surgery or an infection.

Currently my pain profile has changed. I don't have shooting pain down my right leg to my foot but I have shooting pains from my lower back into both buttock areas. I would give the pain level a 3 out of 10. My right leg feels a little more numb and heavy footed than my left leg. It kind of feels a little asleep.  I'm afraid the pain may increase suddenly or the sciatica may come back. It's hard to sleep with sciatic nerve pain.  In the meantime, I'm still doing physical therapy.

I'm not going to make a decision off of your comments but your thoughts are welcome.

As Ed said, have a well known spinal ortho doc give you a second opinion.  Beyond that you just need to weigh the risk/cost VS the reward/benefit

[kartanoman]

Just wondering if you or someone you know was in a similar situation.

Six months ago, I developed pain in my hip. An x-ray showed my hip joint was OK.  I went for physical therapy and it slowly helped for the most part.  A month ago I developed sciatic nerve pain down my right leg. I was the approved for an MRI.

The MRI shows that I have Severe Inner Channel scoleosis in my lower back.  My spinal cord is very narrow between L4 and L5. It is being compressed by my backbone.

My spine doctor recommended surgery but he wants me to go home and think about it as it is a serious decision.

The surgery involves a rod and screws into my backbone between L4 and L5. There is a chance I will be in a lot of pain after surgery and recovery time is 3-4 months. There is no guarantee it will relieve the pain and pain relief could be 25%, 50% or 100%. There is a small chance or nerve damage during surgery or an infection.

Currently my pain profile has changed. I don't have shooting pain down my right leg to my foot but I have shooting pains from my lower back into both buttock areas. I would give the pain level a 3 out of 10. My right leg feels a little more numb and heavy footed than my left leg. It kind of feels a little asleep.  I'm afraid the pain may increase suddenly or the sciatica may come back. It's hard to sleep with sciatic nerve pain.  In the meantime, I'm still doing physical therapy.

I'm not going to make a decision off of your comments but your thoughts are welcome.

Hello Lou,

Thank you for sharing your story. I also want to thank our friends here who have shared their experiences and some of their solutions which, if I may offer up, would write down or bookmark this thread for future consideration as there are some excellent recommendations.

I'm in my mid-50s, was an athlete from high school through my mid-20s playing competitive contact sports, served in the Army for four years and did all kinds of heavy lifting, running in combat boots, the whole nine yards, in addition to long-distance running into my mid-40s until I blew out my left Achilles and suffered complications which nearly cost me my entire left leg. I make mention of the leg because it permanently impacted my gait which impacted my lumbar area of my spine (i.e. L3, L4, L5). My MRIs, both with and without contrast, show a bulging and deterioration of my disks between L2-L3 (not too bad), L3-L4 (Significant), L4-L5 (significant) and L5-S1 (moderate). I learned, last year, my left knee was complete rubbish and a total knee arthroscopy (i.e. total knee replacement) was in order; a shocking piece of news for me but not hard to understand as my knee and hip have been swelling terribly over the past eight years since the five operations on my Achilles and osteomyelitis which started taking over the bones in my ankle. Anyway, I had that completed last year and have spent the last 11 months trying to get used to the "new normal." Not a complete success, knee area still hurts, surgeon throws his hands up, so I figure in time it might get a little better, but I digress. In the midst of all those issues with my left leg, my back continued to ache and give me problems. I went to my neurologist who hooked me up to electrodes for an Electromyography to determine what issues I had with my nervous system; fortunately, apart from all the nerves severed in my left leg, when they had to reconstruct the back of my lower left leg (sort of a mini version of Alex Smith in "Project 11"), I was otherwise normal; a good sign.

Despite having occasional Sciatica numbness, or occasional light pain, I decided to not pursue any surgical approach as I have, to date, been very disappointed with all surgeries I've had to improve my quality of life. I've walked away feeling they have taken away my body's potential regardless of the pain I was feeling. I AM a masochist when it comes to pain endurance! But Bill Brown's approach above (NOTE: he used the famous wrester "Diamond" Dallas Page's Yoga/Fitness Program, or DDPY), or any program which enables you to improve controlling your breathing, flexibility, core muscle strength, endurance to enable you to tackle greater challenges, is going to benefit you. Whether you are self-motivated, or need Physical Therapy in the worst-case scenario, or even a gym membership with a few sessions with  one of their instructors, there are many avenues to improving your core strength which will end up taking the load off of your spine.

I've given you my personal testimony. Now, let me quickly share with you my wife's which might be more applicable to your situation. My wife, like myself, has been a gym rat forever. She loves to distance run, lift weights, do hard, intense workouts. But, over time, her L4-L5-S1 deteriorated far worse than mine. Pain meds, three diskectomy procedures, nerve damage in her lower back discovered during her Electromyography; all this took place over a perios of four to five years. Before we left New Mexico, and during the peak of COVID, we made, in retrospect, the worst decision by allowing what turned out to be a cold, heartless surgeon perform a spinal fusion of her L4-L5.

Note that I wasn't even allowed in the hospital at the time. Post-op, she woke up to excruciating pain, unqualified staff in the PACU literally ignored her and the surgeon was long gone and never showed his face in front of her ever again; a young PA in her final year at University of New Mexico was handling my wife and completely dropped the ball on my wife's total care in that hospital. In the six days they held her hostage there, without me having a chance to visit her in person, it was all she could do to call me and beg me to bring her food because they were starving her and she was in pain, so badly, that I had to literally hide her pain meds in her food just so that she could have relief. The day she was discharged, the woman had a look that could kill anyone caught in her path. Literally cursing and swearing at the staff, as she screamed in pain getting into my car, I could only stare at them in disgust and say "What the f@&k did you do to my wife??? If you won't tell me, I'll find out and, I promise, you'll be talking then."

That was in early 2020. Today, that area directly on the scar from that procedure, as well as any part of that cage that can be touched on the surface of her back, hurts her so badly that she still has to take pain medication and I'm rubbing Alieve gel on/around that area twice daily.

This is one person's testimony; it doesn't necessarily reflect all post-op results; however, take it from someone who goes through the pain with his wife, who still feels significant pain to this very day, and greatly regrets have the procedure performed on her, I can safely say that, unless you are in a critical state of health, where life is hanging in the balance, and a disk fusion procedure is the only thing that will save your life, then have the procedure. If that scenario does not apply to you, do NOT, under ANY circumstance, allow any surgeon to talk you into having it done until you have thoroughly exhausted all the other less-evasive options which may be available to you.

My wife had that procedure at 50 years old. Her back is now the equivalent of 80 years old; yet, she continues to fight, no matter the pain.

I offer this to you, openly and honestly, for your thought and consideration. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me through this site's personal message feature, or via my e-mail.

Wishing you only the very best outcome!

Peace, Chris K (kartanoman)

[squibber]

Chris, I'm sorry to hear what you and your wife went through and are going through.

I am currently scheduled for back surgery. Physical therapy has not really helped and things are gradually getting worse.

My nerve pain extends deeper down my legs now and I can't walk more than ten minutes until my right leg feels pretty numb as nd and I have to sit down. I did a lot of due diligence on my surgeon and I feel good about a positive outcome.

[kartanoman]

Chris, I'm sorry to hear what you and your wife went through and are going through.

I am currently scheduled for back surgery. Physical therapy has not really helped and things are gradually getting worse.

My nerve pain extends deeper down my legs now and I can't walk more than ten minutes until my right leg feels pretty numb as nd and I have to sit down. I did a lot of due diligence on my surgeon and I feel good about a positive outcome.

Hello Lou.

I understand and please let us know the rough time frame you will be going in for your procedure so that I, and others here, can add you to our daily prayers and intentions list; know you are already on mine and I will also include your medical team performing your procedure.

One final lesson learned regarding my wife's experience, as well as my own: NEVER receive medical treatment in New Mexico! I'll leave it at that.

Again, I wish you all my best wishes on a successful procedure and healing to allow you the opportunity to live without pain.

Peace, Chris K (kartanoman)