I would have quite a few questions myself, if I where you, before agreeing to any kind of surgery.

First of all, your MRI is very old, almost a year old and I don't know any spine surgeon that would use a one year old MRI to determine if a patient needed surgery or not.

Did this spine surgeon realize that the MRI was not a new one, but a year old?

Please be sure to tell the new spine surgeon that your MRI is from July 2008 and not a recent one and that you want a new MRI done before talking about surgery of any kind.

You should also ask about conservative treatments first before agreeing to any kind of surgery.

As for surgery, what is done would depend on what surgery the doctor plans on doing.

Did the doctor you just saw give you a name for the surgery he wanted to do?

Good luck and keep us posted on what this new doctor you are going to see tells you.

Fran

Thanks for reply and sharing your concerns about this.

The surgeon i saw was aware that the scan was 2008. before i attended that appointment i visited my own family doctor who told me to be prepared for another mri as this would classed as old reading.

I did ask the surgeon why another mri was not being done for new update and he said because i had one done in 2007 and another 2008 they had the evidence they needed for complete disc removal.

My own doctor is pleased that surgery is imminent but i told him i was not happy with the lapse of time between scans and the fact had i not fell through the system this surgery could have been done months ago.

I will not accept surgery without another mri being done this i shall be assertive about.

I can feel the change in my legs as i mentioned before so a larger prolapse that was detected 2008 heaven knows what other damaage has been caused and also told no pain management till surgeon sees me and stay on fentanyl for pain.

Is it me being paranoid or am i picking up a cover up for me falling through my previous pain management system.? and failure to deliver scan results in a limited time of usually 4/5 wks not 8/9 month later.

Honey: I just saw this thead...Give me some time to wake up and look it over...I have a disc like this and live in pain like you do...I have things to say on this thread and will get back to you later..., Will talk with you later...

C

Gosh, this scares me...You definitely need another MRI, but what happens afterwards?...Is a replacement disc inserted in this spot?...Is this an experimental surgery or one that has been proven to be effective?...I know when we get older and in your case younger and live in pain that there is not much that you can do, but could this be worse?....Have you checked with other spine surgeons throughout world?...I know I have the bad disc, but I am older than you and age does have it's handicaps...Especially with my having these faults to start....This is so confusing with all the things that have not been done and sometimes guessing game....

C

A good surgeon at nuffield private hospital told me after 2007 scan surgery was not an option i was longterm.
I had a second setback in 2008 and had the second emergency mri scan this detected the larger prolapse. that was some emergency scan as taken nearly a year to get results.
This is the worrying part caroline and they want me to hospital a.s.a.p to see this other surgeon to have this operation done.
If anyone wants my dates from beginning and info i shall provide it as (it is confusing) and i feel medical people are not seeing what everyone else can see. Or they don,t want too?

Hi there! I'm typing up a fairly long post for you. Would that be okay here (I'm new) or should I email you instead? I hope I can relay a few nuggets of wisdom from my own experience.

here shall be fine thankyou as any information is also a help to others. i shall watch for your reply and look forward to hearing your story.

Loka,

Please post all of the info that you want to post on your situation. the more info, the better for any of us to be able to give you some suggestions.

I see that you are in the UK, are you using the gov. sponsored ins or do you have private as well?

Fran

hi its gov sponsored. The private hospital i attended was a hospital who merged with our NHS to take on huge back log of patients who had been waiting for help like me. Im lucky we have it compared to where you are but system is very slow as our uk gov has stripped our valuable services of doctors and nurses so understaffing is a problem. Built new up to date hospitals and put in expensive equipment and then couldn,t afford staff to use them. So its the patients that suffer. I shall follow up with dates in next post.

HI littleonefb here are my dates.

24th july 2006 injured back.
august8th/20thsept---physio
november 12th--medical.

10th may 2007 MRI scan.
6th sept-surgeon referred to nuffield L5/S1 DISC
15th december-surgeon refused surgery told longterm.

23rd april 2008 - physio discharged same day
8th may---pain management put on fentanyl.
29th june--legs collapsed
3rd july--pain management
14th july 2nd MRI.

8th may-2009-- gp gets scan reading no results.
8th june--surgeon been told increase in prolapse and surgery.

hope this helps you with the dates and time lapses.

wow, that is one long history with a prolapsed disc and not a lot of it makes much sense.

Why in the world would you be told "no surgery and told long term" on a disc ?

You should have been put into a 10 week course of physical therapy to strengthen the core muscles, learn to move properly and attempt to heal the disc on it's own.

Why where you discharged from physio after one day.

And why would you be put on fentanyl for pain that is nerve pain from the disc and not given a med to help ease the nerve pain?

And all that done 2 years after injuring your back?

1 year before an MRI was done on your spine is really bad, it should have been done much sooner than that.
and having to go 4 months before referal to spine surgeon and then wait 3 months to be seen and told no surgery is crazy.

a second MRI a year after the first and info lost on the results for a year, there just are no words to describe that or comment on and to have to wait another year to get the results is just unbelievable.

I would certainly think there was an increase in the prolapsed disc over a 3 year period and no proper treatment to try and heal it on it's own.

Many times a disc will heal on it's own given time and physical therapy.

In your case though, it may be too long now for it to heal on it's own, but then again it might.

the rush to surgery, based on a year old MRI is disturbing. The doctor really has no idea what may or may not be going on now. There may be more going on than the prolapsed disc and maybe not. only an MRI will give him more information.

Besides increased pain and legs collapsing, do you have any other symptoms?

Do you have any loss of bladder or bowel control?

Have you lost feeling in your legs and or feet?

I would demand an immediate new lumbar MRI and done right away, and then discuss the surgery. and discuss it in detail as to what the doctor wants to do, why the immediate rush after a year with no results and why he wants to base it on an 1 year old MRI.

I would also demand to have a second opinion from another spine specialist that is not part of the same practice as the one you are seeing now.

If they give you a problem, I would be very direct with them and very, very blunt. They have screwed up your life for 3 years and you've suffered needlessly for 3 years. Now it's time for them to get their act together and do things correctly.
If they give you any difficulty, then demand to talk to someone above the person you are talking to and keep going up the chain of command to the top.

At the very, very least, they owe this to you and I would make sure they know it and be very blunt with them.

Do you have a copy of the MRI report that you can post as well? If not, then get a copy ASAP so you can have it and let us know what it says.

Fran

hi fran..my meds from july 2006 till pain management 8th may 2008 were Voltarol.diazepam and co/dydramol. pain management put me on fentanyl as this meds were not hitting pain target.
my physio at beginning of injury august 8th till sept 20th 2006 consisted of large tens machine 3times a week for 25 mins and pelvic exercise to keep muscles loose. It was stopped because pain was worse and mobility limited and given cane to help me walk.
the one day of physio you asked about was for medical assessment for disability allowance.
my legs feel different to rest of my body and over last five weeks have joint pain in elbows, fingers, knees and feet tested negative for rhuematiod so orthopedic told on visit last monday its stemming from my back.

we are not allowed to see our medical records unless our gp is present and limited even then to info and never at anytime given copies of mri results or shown them...results are always given verbally by our family doctor or who ever you were referred too.

my bowels rarley move now unless use laxative because of fentanyl and my bladder does leak on occassions but again hospital put that down to me been diagnosed menopause 3 weeks ago...

im so glad someone else has finally noticed my dilemma and why im freaking out about this and my own doctor says basically i have been left to get on with it.

Hey ioka, so from everything that ive read ( i really do feel for you) you have a herniated disc (more than once) L5/S1 - i had the same problem twice, i did finally find a solution after spending all the money that i had on useless pointless doctors that no absolutely nothing. i found a doctor who helped me without surgery or drugs- he is the only person in the world that can help people like us. he is based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada (which is where i live).
post later.unfortunately i am leaving now (sorry) but will ps

im from uk but im sure we shall all look forward to your reply.

NO, im not here advertising (now that i actually read what i wrote i can see why you would ask) I've been through all this crap so i know how most of you feel.
Anyways i was driving one day and i saw a sign that said " back pain? sciatica? guaranteed results call now!" so i called them and told them that i thought tyhey were scamming the people and that its not a joke. i told them that i had a herniated disc L5/S1 and they told me that he could help and i could try it and if i wasnt satisfied i would get all my money back.
so i went and told the guy to his face (its only one main guy) i think you are a scam artist, and he laughed and said i get that all the time. so i tried, and no kidding within 3 sessions (out of 12) i felt a complete change. This is how it works:
He teaches you why you have back problems and what you must do to avoid getting them again, the reason people have surgery and have problems again is because your not fixing the problem just addressing the symptom which takes away the pain but we are still sitting wrong and walking wrong so that puts stress on the disc so the muscles tense up to take the stress away in turn then because we continue the muscle never actually relaxes so even in a calm state a musclle imbalance would be present so, one side will always be pulling the disc eventually, pop and your back at square one.
Look guys im really not scamming or advertising, i just really wanted to know why at 25 years old i had these problems, it was because of a muscle imbalance that my left shoulder kept getting dislocated and no one knew it so they put me in rehab for my arm (which wasnt the cause of the problem) and while working out wioth the staff on a bench press by disc gave out. so this doc that a finally found after a year of different docs basically pouts you on his table face down ( not at all a chiropractor) and with all your clothes on he works on your muscles which, if your like me were so imbalanced that my whole right back muscles were stuck tensed up and my whole spine had calcium build up between the vertabrae so that nothing was working like it should. hebreaks up the calcium between the vertabrae and breaks down the muscle from its hold and everything loosens up its incredible, it takes a little time for the swelling of the nerves and stuff to go away but it does. then he teaches you with a special tool you take home, how you can keep your back muscles and spine in perfect working order all the time, so that this doesnt happen again. with this tool you can actually feel which muscle s you have been putting stress on when you do things improperly. as im sure all you know it takes 2 years approx. for the disc to heal so that it cant herniate or bulge easily after that you can bike ride and rollerblade or whatever you want (except for run that takes longer, please dont try to run) its not expensive and it really is guaranteed results, the funny thing is the sign i saw while i was driving, someone that he fixed owns the sign company and put one up a couple signs without even telling him ( i spoke to this guy so i know hes not lying) and for the same reason im posting this, its not an advertisement for him, i dont get money or credit or anything. im telling you this because i did a lot of research for many years because no one could help me and i got lucky because someone like us got lucky. forget surgery its not the reason you got into these problems that it can fix.
please reply

Hey littleone, i just realized that i was replying to you on the last forum. You really seem like you know a lot,
what problems did you have?

I responded to this same post on another thread but am posting a copy of what I posted here as well.

Interesting information that you have provided, but highly questionable that it can have success in curing various spine problems.

I can't see how this kind of treatment can cure herniated discs that are being caused by spinal stenosis, narrowing of the various canal areas of the vertebrae caused by excess bone growth.

I can't see how this would cure any kind of degeneration of discs that end up causing bone on bone rubbing together.

Nor can I see how it can cure any kind of serious spinal problems.

It is true that poor posture, incorrect motions of your spine, lifting things wrong etc can be corrected with proper body mechanics, core strengthening exercises and learning how to move correctly can improve various spine problems and can help to heal a herniated disc.

But the degree of severity is an issue, as is the individual issue of the spine varies from one person to another, and to say that this treatment, what ever it is called, is going to heal various spine problems without the need for surgery, does not sound realistic at all.

It sounds far more like various chiropractic treatments that are claimed to heal any and all kinds of medical issues and are not realistic. Many times the treatment is nothing more than an expense for the patient with no real results or it makes the spine problems and other medical problems far worse than they originally where.

It's hard to really comment specifically on what you have posted, since you are the one describing a treatment that you claim to have received, but have not provided any kind of name to it.
Is there a reason that you have not provided a name to this treatment that you claim to have had?

Physical therapy can work quite well for a herniated disc, if treatment is provided in time and given a course of time to work. On the other hand, there are patients that are in far too much pain to be able to do any kind of physical therapy or even be touched by anyone to have a chance at physical therapy.

Without any idea what this, so called treatment is called or if it even has a name, there is nothing more that I can comment on or anyone else can comment about it.

Fran

Is it possible to get another opinion before surgery?

My other concern is the attitude with your bladder leaking on occasion. Far too many doctors just pass this off as part of menopause and with spine issues in the L5/L5 area, one of the serious consequences can be loss of bowel and or bladder control. This is called cauda equina syndrome and can become a medical emergency requiring surgery very, very quickly before the loss of control becomes permanent.

This may be why they want to do surgery right away, even though they are saying the bladder issues are part of menopause.

Fran

My spine issues where certainly nothing that would have been corrected with what you have described in your post.

I had lateral recess stenosis from severe narrowing of the lateral part of the canal at the L4/L5 level. The pain came on suddenly over night. Went to be fine and couldn't get up the next morning.

My nerves where so severely compressed that physical therapy was impossible, injections did nothing and within 4 months of onset, I lost full bladder control, about 9 hours before surgery to relieve the nerve compression.

I was fine for about 2 years and then a freak accident chipped the L3/L4 vertebrae and required surgery before the chip floated around and did serious damage.

At this point, I have a bulging L4/L5 disc that has not healed on it's own in the past 12 months and will require a microdisectomy within the next 2 months as well as a widening of the central canal at the same vertebrae. There is barely enough room for the nerves to pass through.

There is no way that the treatment you have described in your post will do anything to widen the central foramen and remove the bone growth that has occurred.

Fran