Minimally Invasive Oxygen-Ozone Therapy for Lumbar Disk Herniation

[John Galt]

Hi all!
It's been a while since I've last posted here. My herniated disc has not improved and the results from my last MRI say,"L4-L5 large left paracentral disc herniation/extrusion with inferior migration of disc material into the left lateral recess with posterior displacement of the descending left L5 and S1 nerve root."

I'm getting occasional leg pain which gets worse during the Winter months.
Swimming, which I love, sets it off also. I had consulted with a surgeon who thought that my pain level was not worthy of surgery so tomorrow I'm going to consult with a doctor about possibly using Ozone. I've posted the info before about injecting Ozone directly into the disc using fluoroscopic guidance a couple of years ago.
http://www.ispine.org/forum/abstract...erniation.html

Anyway, I thought that I would document this so that it may help others in the future because I've not found much on message boards from people who have actually had Ozone injections. I will post more info as I get it.
Any questions feel free to ask.

[Maria]

Hey John,
I just happened to look on the forum today and saw that you will be consulting with someone re Ozone therapy for your disc herniation and I'll be very interested to hear more about what you find out from this consultation and should you decide to proceed how it goes! Please keep us posted.

Wishing you the best! Maria

[John Galt]

Hi, the consultation went well and I'll probably have this done. I was impressed with the Doctor and his experience with Ozone. However, due to the herniation being large he lowered the success rate to about 70%. I probably would have been better off getting this done years ago because the herniation has since got larger.
He also stated that the ozone injection should stop the herniation from getting worse.

[Maria]

I wonder if it would work for annular tears? I had read something about stem cell therapy re disc bulges and asked my OSS about it last time I saw him and he said he didn't know how well that would work for disc bulges or herniations and also that as old as what I have going on is the only thing that 's going to do anything at this point is fusion which is what I have successfully to date avoided.

Thanks for sharing and wish you success with it ..even if it just stops it from progressing. My disc bulges recurred post discectomies and at L4 I still have one about the same size as before surgery. L5S1 is well dried out by now and pretty well on it's way to auto fusion.

I had an annular tear at L3 and it used to give me quite a bit of grief tho these days everything is pretty much blamed on arthritic changes and L4/L5.

Again wishing you the best results you can have!

[John Galt]

Thanks Maria. Have you looked into Prolotherapy in place of fusion? It's a less invasive way to stabilize the lumbar.

[Maria]

I've not looked into anything really any further re my spine because supposedly WC (Workers Compensation) covers my low back as I have long had Future Medical Benefits from an work related injury however the truth is they deny everything now even my pain medication so in essence they are only paying for my PM appts. and visit every 3 months and OSS 2x/year but nothing else. I have no coverage with my regular insurance or Medicare since supposedly WC covers my low back so had to sign papers for that part of my bod to be waived re any care.

Yeah so not doing anything except taking a low dose of my pain med daily. I have just arrived home after being gone for 2 months so need to check my mail to see if there is anything there that tells me my care won't be paid for anymore re visits which I wouldn't doubt re Workers Comp.

My regular health insurance has a $3k deductible so I try not to go to doctors anymore at least in the USA. I go to Tijuana Mexico instead to be seen if I'm able to because there the physicians actually treat a person like a human vs. like a number.

[John Galt]

My Ozone Discectomy is scheduled for 7-21. I'll report back when done.

[Maria]

Ok John! Will look forward to an update in the future and in the meantime wishing you all the best with this and hopefully some decent relief!

Maria

[John Galt]

Reporting back.
I had the Ozone shot today. It wasn't painful and the procedure only took about 10 minutes. However, afterwards I did have to lay down for 4 hours in the recovery room before I could leave. Not the worse thing to endure.

I should see progress within a few days to a few weeks.
Will post back.

[Maria]

John,
Just wondering if you could tell me what would b the criteria not to have this done like disc is an ancient bulge, or ? exclusions I guess is what I mean.

Also if you don't mind me asking .. did you pay cash for this procedure or was it covered by your insurance? Not that it would matter for me since everything is denied for me anyway though just thought I'd inquire.

Hope to hear you've had some noticeable relief when next you report.

take care! Maria

[John Galt]

Hi, I don't think that there are any exclusions so long as the disc is the cause. No, insurance will not pay but I'm going to file an appeal. Cost was around $2400

[John Galt]

On second thought. In this study there were exclusions.

Exclusion criteria for oxygen-ozone therapy were neuroradiologic evidence of disk prolapse or free fragments of herniated disk, and major neurologic deficit correlated to disk disease. In these cases, the patients underwent surgical treatment

Minimally Invasive Oxygen-Ozone Therapy for Lumbar Disk Herniation

[John Galt]

Update. One week out and I'm not seeing any improvement in my pain level.

[Maria]

I guess it's been a few weeks now? I saw your last update with no improvement one week out and was just wondering if you've noticed any improvement thus far? I'm hopeful your reply will be yes though knowing spine related things am just hopeful not expectant.

Best wishes still John for some relief

Maria

[John Galt]

Thanks for the well wishes Maria. I may be seeing improvement, hard to say because I usually have up and down days. Nothing miraculous for sure. In theory, healing takes a while so I still have hope but it's fading.

[Kes]

Sorry to hear you aren't feeling improvement yet, but thank you for sharing your experience with all of us. I happened to read this article recently, my take from it was that the healing phase may take several months but 75% of people experienced improvement.

Five and Ten Year Follow-up on Intradiscal Ozone Injection for Disc Herniation | International Journal of Spine Surgery

Best wishes for your improvement! Kes

[John Galt]

Thanks Kes.

Another week has passed. Had a good amount of leg pain this week but less today. Sometimes I wonder if the increase in pain is like a rebound effect to healing, if that's possible. Probably just wishful thinking. I also stretched out my hip so that may have helped to relieve some pain.
Report back in a week.
Best Wishes to all

[Maria]

To see if there's been any improvement of late. Perhaps you'll be giving a few more weeks to a few months to see if there is noticeable relief. I'm still hoping it does help even if it takes a while!

[John Galt]

Hi,
I'm not doing well at all. I'm getting worse. Leg pain has increased, which may be getting worse from doing McKenzie back extensions, don't know yet. But the ozone injection should have improved my condition by now.
Going back to Doctor on Monday.

[Maria]

Bummer. What one does not want to feel as most of us with pain issues know all too well. I hope your doctor can do something for you to ease the pain a bit. I've forgotten what McKenzie back extensions are though just the word extension bothers me .. I'll google it as it's familiar enough to me to know I've done them in the past.

I went to our little local gym a few weeks back and did some leg adductions/abductions with no weight just for range of motion. Was Ok the following day but the day after that had groin pain and lower back pain so haven't done them again. I also bought a little "thigh abductor" deal at KMart and used it sort of overhead using my hands/arms to work some upper arm musculature. What it did was make my neck and thoracic spine hurt.

So back to just walking. Seems like anything I do with my arms aggravates my neck and t-spine and anything I do with my legs aggravates my low back (other than walking which sometimes aggravates my posterior tibial tendonitis in my feet)!

Now sorry for the departure from your pain into my stuff which thankfully has been quite manageable of late as long as I'm just "growing older gracefully" (not doing anything too physical or aggravating).

Will hope to hear the doc has something up his or her sleeve to help you out on Monday.

take care John~

[John Galt]

Yes Maria it's the pain. I think that the average person would not have put up with the pain that I've endured over a 25 year period.
Right or wrong I've always refused surgery... so far.
But a life in pain is hell!

Anyway I'm less worried now. Found this study over the weekend. It had taken 7 months for the pain to go away in this case .
Case 1
A 46 year old, non-smoker, male plumber and gas fitter with body mass index (BMI) of 27.3, presented in January 2011 with discogenic type low back pain, left lower limb sciatica to the calf, lateral foot, toes and hyperalgesia to the sole of the foot, which were managed with manual therapy and oral analgesics. In June 2011 symptoms returned after he had been playing with his son and was admitted to the emergency department due to severe low back spasm. An MRI showed a large uncontained L4/5 disc herniation compressing the spinal canal and the left L5 root compatible with his symptoms (Figure 1a,b). He refused surgery and was referred for percutaneous intradiscal O2O3 treatment in June 2011 with an Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) of 24% suggesting mild to moderate disability. He had been on oral Tramadol 200mg BD and Naproxyn 500mg PRN. There was weakness to resisted left big toe dorsiflexion due to L5 nerve compression. Following written informed consent explaining the risks and outcomes, under CT guidance using a sterile technique, and local anaesthetic in a prone position, 20cc medical grade Oxygen Ozone (27µg/ml) was injected into the nucleus pulposus of the disc through a 22g spinal needle (Figure 1c,d). The needle was withdrawn out of the disc and Celestone Chronodose (5.7mg) was injected into the anterior epidural space. Two months post intradiscal O2O3, ODI was 8% (77% reduction from pretreatment) and at seven months his pain had completely resolved. He returned to normal activities with cessation of all analgesics. Mild paraesthesia of the left L5 distribution persisted with resumption of usual work and activities at this time. MRI at seven months showed dramatic resolution of disc herniation and decompression of the spinal canal (Figure 1e,f).

Case report: Intradiscal oxygen ozone therapy in uncontained lumbar disc herniation - F1000Research

Then I had my Dr appointment today. He said that's it unusual to still have pain after a month but said that he's had patients that have had pain increase before getting better.
Also said that people who do take longer to respond do better with the ozone treatment than the others. I believe that my body is reacting to the ozone, Because I've had too large of increase in pain since the ozone injection. Very doubtful that it's a coincidence.

I was prescribed PoDiaPN a few months back by my Sports Med doc. It is supposedly helpful for neuropathy. I never used it but I'll try it for the short term.
PoDiaPN™

Best Wishes

[John Galt]

Another week has passed and a good amount of pain has left, hopefully forever. I stopped taking PoDiaPn last week, no sense in taking it if the pain is easing.
It's really disturbing to me that Ozone is not being used before a micro discectomy is done here in the U.S. It's all about the $ and Ozone is not expensive. Corruption, from the top down in healthcare!

Check back in week.
Best Wishes!

[Maria]

Hey John,
So glad to read that you're feeling relief! Yes I agree that the things that could be done prior to recommending surgery are the things that should be recommended and tried before surgery if not an emergent situation not to mention be covered by insurance however oft times I think when the patient mentions something such as the Oxygen-Ozone Therapy because it's really pretty low on the cost level it's not attractive to enough for surgeons to offer and probably not utilized enough therefore documented enough for other practitioners to use widely and have insurance cover... so the shots, the knife, the drugs .. (the big guns) are the way to go re money making!

The conservative path one usually has to take here in the USA at least if insurance is involved at all doesn't really allow for much in the way of patient suggesting what they might want to try rather it's a pretty straight shot prior to surgery whether one wants to follow all that or not while they suffer and pursue pain relief (as insurers would have it re authorization for treatments based on evidence based information and peer reports etc and loads of red tape that takes so long).

As you stated it should be criminal to offer less of what might work more at least at certain stages with certain populations of the spine suffers out there. Especially as there are so many of us. Sadly we, the spine sufferers can be big money for those that treat our problems or horribly long suffering while we wait for various treatment plans to be authorized and/or not receive care at all because we have no insurance or no money or high deductibles and not enough $ or maybe almost the worse being WC coverage.

I'm glad you're doing better and I do hope you continue on this way. Please keep us posted!

Maria