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Since we're sharing...
I had a double microdiscectomy in January 2009. Material between L4 and L5 was sticking out and pressing on my sciatic nerve. I couldn't sit up, stand, or walk. The pain was debilitating. I was walking mere hours after surgery. With the exercises and therapy I am hoping to put off the inevitable future surgeries. I am pain free now, even with the weakened discs...I'm old though.
They have made great progress in back procedures lately (my brother got rods 20 something years ago), but I was just reading an article yesterday about complications and it wasn't good. Take care of your backs people.
i'm living proof of the complications. After my micro back in 2002, back in 2008 I ended up needing a lamenectomy which was a MUCH bigger surgery... enjoyed that joyride so much that my back apparently was ready for more as I ruptured the same disk just two weeks later while recovering, necessitating a second lamenectomy. I was bedridden for months on end and my first doctor thought I had Failed Back Syndrome and told me there was nothing he could really do for me unless I choose to have spinal fusion surgery. Basically, he told me my life was going to be painful and i'd live on pain-killers to get through each and every day.
I wasn't going to take that as an answer. Not at 32 and with most of my life ahead of me. I stopped listening to what he said and continued on with my physical therapy intensively for months on end. Figured out a couple things along the way of what was hurting me most and helping me most, kicked my meds because I just couldn't stand taking them and 8 months later I was able to return back to LA (had to move back in with my parents in Phoenix after the surgeries). Definitely still had some pain, but I continued therapy on my own and now it's been almost two years since the surgeries, and while not pain-free, I can pretty much live the life I always lived (sans playing sports).
And to be honest, I might have had the fusion until I got a second and third opinion. Doctors who told me it was MUCH too early to be told I had Fail Back Syndrome. Doctors who led me to believe that if I continued working and gave it my all, that I could lead a normal life again. Not a life without pain mind you, but a life worth living.
That's what I did and my life has never been better in almost every facet.
Why am I telling y'all this? Because back pain SUCKS but you should never give up trying to get well.