I have had many spinal surgerys and now I have had to deal with nerve damage and they told me that it should heal itself in about a year. Well since then I have had to have 2 implanted pain pumps and nothing is helping the severe pain that runs down my legs. It still hurts to lay on my right side and to seat it kills the lower part of my back. So be very careful if the pain does not get better in 6 months I would start looking for someone that can fix it. Plese let me know if you know of someone. It is wonderful that your wife was by your side and not to make things worse after they put a cage in my loswe back it was not even 6 months all the sedc whent out in my neck. So another surgery. That was a bad one. I am not tryin gto color coat this in any way any surgery on your spine effect your whole body. If you want to hear more or have questions that I may can answer.
wavedreamer1@aol.com. My prayers are with you. Sandra
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Originally Posted by rutman
Steve--just had a decompression microdisectomy of the L4 and L5 and so far recuperating well right now. While it feels someone punched me in the back since surgery of 6 days ago I am gaining my stamina back after this 2 1/2 surgery. I not only had the ruptured disc, but when he was in there apparently a difficult surgery I had some bone spurs that had calcimized together also causing compression on the nerve root. He was able to cut that out and also repair the herniated disc. I had excruitiating pain shooting down the back of right leg going all the way down on top of foot and the foot was constantly numbe the last 2 weeks before surgery. Now--no shooting pain and just slight tingling numbness in right foot, but I have been told that's normal due to the nerve root has to heal--some of the largest nerves in the body right next to the sciatic nerve which is the largest. The tingling in the foot I have been told can last up to a year even after surgery due to getting the nerve to heal. I can tell I would do the surgery again with this Dr. Jeffrey Beane of Greensboro, NC (336-545-5000) of Greensboro Orthopedics. While he's an Orhtipedic and not a Neurosurgeon he is a Spine Specialist and doing Spine Surgery is his strong suit thank goodness and thank goodness my wife being a Case Mgr in the Nursing field knew about him as I live in Danville, VA and preferred going to him instead of others including a Neurosurgeon. He told me I also had a slightly bulging L5-S1 disc, but if it had only been that he would not have recommended surgery. Bottom line the disc between L4/L5 was ruptured severely and these bone spurs he also came across didn;t help matters at all--therefore the surgery. I would highly recommend this surgeon as I have to go back to remove stitches in 10-14 days and goal is to get back to work by Jan 23rd. Surgery was on 1-4-07--I think that pretty darn good considering what I've had. I have really no idea how I incurred the disc problems, but I'm sl;ightly overweight and will have to diet I realize, but I have been an avid golfer for 32 plus years and my question to others out there is really how much does the golf swing cause lower back problems and herniated discs? Can a wrong swing plane cause more pressure in the lower back versus a changed swing? I hope to get back playing in 6 mos or less, but realize the doctor will make that call for me in several weeks. Please make your comments on this Decompression Microsurgery and other people's successes, failures, recommendations as well as the golf swing questions at your earliest convenience. Lastly, here's a website that is a great demonstration of what I had done for lumbar disectomy--only my back slit was about 3-4 inches not 1-2 inches as the animation displays. Take care everyone! John aka rutman
Microdiscectomy: Lumbar Microdecompression Spine Surgery Video
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