[steve55]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Getting everyone's opinions helps me work this thing out. The benefit of reading the replies tells me not to lose hope yet given there are much stronger meds out there. I thought vicoden was one of the hard core stronger meds but I guess not. Wow.

Jsewell, about finding a doc with thoracic discography experience, well, I did a consultation with Mark about all this and if I read him right, he said it isn't necessarily a bad thing or something to worry about if that doc hasn't done thoracic discograms before. I believe Mark said that it is much more important that the doctor is good at what he does, good at discograms. Maybe a certain doc has done a lot of thoracic disco but at the same time he may not be as good and talented at doing and interpreting them appropriately, especially when it comes to being able to seperate false positives from the real bad discs. Like I said, TBI (Dr Zigler) uses my current pain doc for their discos so that along with my doc being on the top doc lists speaks volumes to me about his talents with discos. TBI wouldn't use him if they didn't think he was the best,.... right?????? Well, that's my thinking. Perhaps , to make 100% sure, I could have a 2nd thoracic discogram with the disco doctor of choice of whichever surgeon plans to do surgery on me. A double check would make sure we are removing the right disc???

I will add that my pain doc was adamant that I dont want to have a thoracic surgery. I explained to him that ive read many people who have had it done successfully and are now pain free. He brushed that off and said maybe a few have had success but too many others did not. He REALLY doesnt support thoracic surgery. Well, if all I can do is lay in bed all day and my life is ruined anyways, why the hell would I not do it? You gotta do something, especially if the disco is positive at which disc is painful.