It is 2 weeks from my surgery date, so I wanted to write this post to explain how I got into this situation.
History: I was wake boarding (or attempting) when I was about 24. My low back starting hurting pretty bad a few hours after and by the time I got home, I could barely walk. I missed a whole week of work due to that incident. But, I recovered until a year later, when I was moving some heavy furniture, the same thing happened again. I was out for a week again, but this time I didn't feel like I recovered 100%. This was in the summer time, so by fall, my general doc put me in a physical therapy program. After a few weeks, the PT wasn't working, so I had an MRI and went saw an orthopedic surgeon. He told me I needed surgery because my disc at L5/S1 was herniated and was pressing on my sciatic nerve which was causing pain in my right leg all the way down to my feet.
So, I had a laminectomy and discectomy to remove a little bit of the bone on the back of my spine to gain access to the damaged disc. That was the laminectomy end of it. The discectomy is where the surgeons take the part of the disc that is ruptured out and leave the rest of the disc in place.
About 2 and a half years passed by when I started to feel the sciatic pain in my right leg again. I had a new health plan and a new general doc at this point, who sent me to see a neuro surgeon. My latest MRI showed my disc was ruptured again at the same place and he recommended a microdiscectomy. This is roughly the same procedure as a discoctomy, only a much smaller incision is made (about 1 inch vs. 4 inches with the Orthopedic). Tiny cameras and advanced technology make it possible to perform the surgery with a much smaller incision and a quicker recovery period.
So, after 2 surgeries, I was feeling better than when my disc was rupturiung, but I continued to experience some general back pain and discomfort. It was managable most of the time, unless I was doing something very active like a lot of yard work or home projects. I knew this was probably going to be the case because my neuro surgeon did a great job explaining the realities of doing the micro-discectomy. A spinal fusion was brought up at the time, but I opted to try one more shot at seeing if this disc could settle down.
Well, in June of 2006 is starting acting up again. This time, it was a more central pain, sometimes going down the right leg, sometimes going down both sides into the buttoch area on the left. Lots of PT and medication helped get it to a managable. I saw my neuro surgeon again after getting another MRI and this is when he recommended the fusion. The policy he likes to use is typically a "3 strikes and you're out." However, I started feeling better shortly after seeing him so I decided not to go with the surgery. He did give me the option to try epidural shots, which really helped for a while. That was about 7 months ago. The problems have been lingering to some degree since then, but recently started flaring up again.
So, I took the plunge this time and schedule my fusion for May 14th. I will write another post explaining the brutal details of the surgery soon.
