Hi Fuzzy and Katie
Thankyou for writing and I can see you've both been through a heck of a lot too.
I think it was my sense of indignation that constantly fired me up to keep up the quest for an answer.
Also my first two spinal ops were carried out as "surgical emergencies" after lengthy delays so from experience I know how easily the medics get things wrong.
Into this equation comes the "social background" element of case evaluation and in my case there should have been some very red faces.
Too easy to dismiss genuine pathology when the patient is perceived to have a 'difficult life'.
I've recently read a report written in 1992 by the surgeon who managed to damage me twice that states '.... relevant to her back problem is the fact that she emerged last year from a four year relationship with a live-in gentleman friend which may have had some effect on her son who is now aged 23....'
In that same report he goes on to state ....'she is walking increasingly with a waddling gait. She gets a feeling of pain and weakness in her legs when she walks anything up to 200 yards and finds she is dragging her legs'.
Hmmmm.....relationship wasn't brilliant but he wasn't responsible for that!
But I must have been worth experimenting on though because three long years after that in 1995 he performed an anterior fusion at L4 - S1 using a fibre glass type compound with wollastonite and large staples. This has never fused and the staples have migrated and I only found out that fact on October 26th.
Guess all the surgeons and neurologists who have supposedly looked at my scans for the past three years and declared ' no operable target ' should have gone to Specsavers?
The 'psycho-surgeon' was recommended to me by someone who ran a support group for chronic pain sufferers, and as I was a lot less well informed in those days and getting no help from my GP I asked to see him privately.
Because he eventually offered to operate on me when according to my GP nobody else would I thought he was a hero!
And then because I was still having problems he did the Dynesys fusion in 2004 - yes - on top of a failed fusion. Wonderful.
That was supposed to be done under X-ray guidance for the correct insertion of the pedicle screws but I guess they ran out of coins for the electricity meter on that day?
Some of these screws have perforated the anterior cortex of the vertebral bodies, wonder how far these screw tips are away from internal organs?
The fact that I've been complaining of left sided lower abdominal pains ( iliac fossa ) for a number of years didn't prompt the gastro-intestinal guys to tell me the truth either. Or they also need new specs.
It's been like screaming behind a thick glass wall these past three years but I quickly cottoned on to the fact that this time they were going to 'push me out to sea'. Terrifying scenario.
I can't begin to tell you what a huge relief it is to finally have found a surgeon who is very concerned at the state I'm in and has put it in writing.
I see my GP on Tuesday and before too long things should really get moving.
I'll let you know how things progress.
Thankyou once again everybody for the support you've given me, from reading your experiences I gain strength because it's only through sharing this stuff with people in a similar scenario that I can keep a reasonable handle on things, or equilibrium the psychologists might say?!
Be in touch....
