Surgery.

Bones, joints and muscles
1

I feel that I'm balanced on eggshells here.  See, I don't want to discourage anyone who's about to undergo surgery. For whatever spinal condition assails.  However, I know with no doubt, that surergy is NOT an option for me. I was given only one option: fusion surgery. I've seen too many disasters as the result of that particular course to want to undertake it myself. And my GP supported me in my decision not to go ahead. 

I suffer constant, intractable pain.  The drugs no longer really ehlp.  The life I believed I'd have at this stage of my life has become just something I once hoped for, but will never be realised.

My thoughts are, of course, with everyone who is facing surgery. 

2

Hi Maggi,

              I really hope that you don't feel like you are walking on egg shells. People want a solution and often they feel like surgery will be the best option, However this is not always the case. In my situation I was told 85% of people had good recovery, I was in the 15%. It is something that we as individuals  have to accept there is no magic solution. I hope you are okay xo

3

Dear Maggie, don't be balanced on egg shells you have enough to contend with and you have your reasons and you GP agrees with you about fusion.

you may find yourself dwn the line months even years to try it when you simply can't take anymore.. And if not hope that chronic pain eases with other methods.  Must be so scary knowing people and hearing stories that fusion hasn't cured. I as an individual reached the point of i know all the risks and i am willing to take that chance as it was very disabling 

4

Bless you, I really do hope you find some sort of relief. Surgery was my last option sand 11 weeks post a 3 level spinal fusion although I'm not cured I am 60% better than I was And am able to manage to pain I have with meds. I am slowly reducing meds and hope to be prescription drug free at some point in the near future. Spinal fusiom does have many risks and long term can cause mobility problems but being a mother of 3 and only 42 i had to make the decision to live for now why I can enjoy my family and if problems arise later I will deal. For me at the moment it was the right decision my quality of life has improved so much and I'm not yet at the 3 month post op Mark.  Take care 

5

Hi Maggi7, you're not walking on egg shells. This is what this forum is all about to encourage, help and share stories.  It's an incredible hard choice to make and one that you can only be helped by the medical profession and listening to other stories of how things went for them. But at the end of the day it's down to you. I myself didn't really have much of a choice, it was a case of be operated on or end up paralised and at the age of 51 that wasn't something I wanted.  It wasn't easy and I wouldn't kid you that it was, but I had a fantastic surgeron who I had complete confidence in and the op went well. I was in much less pain but unbeknown to me that would not be the end of it as the rest of my back was just as bad. I refuse to give into it and lead as much of a normal life as I can and I won't kid you that I'm pain free as I'm far from it and have had 3 more surgeries since the 1st one.  I wish you well and hope you find some way of dealing with all of this.

6

There you have it Maggi. Susan, Laura, Sarah, Gail, and now myxelf. Unfortunately, back and neck pain complaints are prevelent in middle age group. Some are accident related, some are health related, some can even be attributed to a birth defect.......and then there is the old "aging process" to blame. I have learned from this forum that no matter where one lives, no matter why they sought out this forum in the first place, we either ARE in the same boat, (or) at some point, we have been there. You are goi g to hear stories from folks that relate to their perceptions of their own experiences. None of us are hear out of anything but good reasons. But you are going to hear poor outcomes as well as good ones. Some of us went ahead with surgery and some decided to put on the brakes. It is completely a decision one must make for their own situation. I will be honest with you, I have been one of the blessed. My surgery has been one of the best decisions I have ever made for myself. I am in the United States. I am 67 yrs old. I have been retired from bedside nursing for 10 months. And I ha e always been a physically active person. 18 months ago I began having nagging low back pain for the first time. MRI showed stenosis and bone spurs. I started taking Ibuprophen 600 mg as needed. It's odd that the stenosis had never bothered me. Considering I was on the final stretch before retirement, when my back became more than a nuisance, I went back to see my neurosurgeon. MRI showed disc herniation @L4-L5 along with the pre-existing Stenosis that was now severe rather than just there. That was Sept 2014. I was thinking that I would turn 66 March 2014, so I would take retirement May/June 2014. So I kept working. By the time I was actually a retired person 6/1/14, I could barely walk and I was in constabconstant pain taking Ibuprophen 600mg every 6 hrs around the clock. I will fast forward to surgery Nov 11, 2014. I was wheeled to my room from Recovery sitting upright on the stretcher with a huge smile on my face. The constant pain of 14 months had been eradicated! That is not to say that back surgery is for the faint of heart. I was told that I could expect to get 85% mobility back by 6 months and I am almost there w/ 85% back. That is not to say that I never have soreness or low back pain, because I do. My muscles are still healing and my ligaments still need to stretch a bit.it's a long process.....try going too fast and you risk messing up your surgery. All I am trying to say is please follow your restrictions. For now, do not bend, don't lift anything heavier than a 5 lb bagof sugar and don't twist at the waist/hips. and take whichever meds that have been prescribed as needed. Good luck Maggi. I hope you feel better soon.

Patricia

7

Dear Patricia,

when i read your post just now which is really encouraging and heartfelt you struck a chord with me nagging pain, that's what I started out with 4 years ago nagging back pain which i went to my doctor for and she gave me a voltarol gel and really didnt take it seriously, it calmed with ibroprufen and learned to live with it but of course it got worse and when the pain down my leg and bottom and lower back hit it was shocking. Week 8 nearly for me next Tuesday and today i went window shopping and carried nothing but a nice coffee and walked in the sun.it felt good. Tonight i have tightness in my hip but im sure im going to get this. Soreness and low back pain is there and my husband said i will get good and bad days, yesterday was better than today. I sometimes think how will I get physical again swimming, love with my husband, just getting into bed   Log rolling isn't as effortless as i would like ha! I've no regrets about my fusion sneezing now is easy as pie! Before fusion because my 2 discs had  

disintegrated it was bone rubbing bone and that was no fun 

8

Laura, I know exactly what you mean about sneezing. Isn't it funny that so many of us have exactly the same symptoms? As far as what you will be able to do and when you will be able to do it......patience. i was much like you. At week 8 I was walking and able to drive for short runs to the store. He still did not want me sitting for more than 15 minutes at a time. I think I got started in these forums at 10 weeks, asking what I should be able to do at that point. Hint: I tried to log roll without much sucess, so I slept on the sofa, so I could sleep on my sides and use the attached back pillows to hike myself over. I was pertrfied to sleep on my back for fear that I would stretch in my sleep and maybe pull out the hardware. That's one of the reasons I used to wear my back brace to bed. As far as when you will be able to sleep with your husband? I can imagine that you and he are going to have to experiment with positions until you arrive at one that doesn't cause you back pain. RRemember..........NO TWISTING!!!! Lol.

good nite Laura.

Patricia

9

May I just say  that I wasn't middle-aged when I first experienced the pain of spondylolisthesis. i was barely thirty-four.  My GP told me that spondy isn't at all related to ageing. It can attack anyone at any age - and most often does so between the ages of thirty and forty. 

I'm at the point now when even getting out of bed of a morning is agonising. Everything I believed I'd be doing in my Autumn years has been abandoned.

Fusion surgery is notr for me: I have too many other health problems to make it a viable option. It would more than likely result in my being less mobile than prior to surgery  - and would certainly result in a furtherance of my respiritory problems. Anaesthetic does strange things to me, you see. One of the effects is congestion of my lungs. 

I'll never get any better than I am now. I have to accept that pain is part of my life. It limits my mobility. I cannot realise the dreams I had for this part of my life.  So many walks I was going to undertake. All beyond my reach now. 

The most painful part of it all is that I can't make the walk top the local cemetery - which is where the ashes of my elder son are interred. He died on 22nd November, 2012.  It's uphill, a mile away from my home, to where his ashes lie you see. And I can't make the walk. 

I have a wheelchair stashed away in the garden shed. I balk at using it. But, as I edge ever-closer to utter disablement, I wonder how my remaining son will cope with my incapacity. I had to cope with my mother's descent into dementia. It all-but killed my spirit. I don't want my son to face that when it comes to me beuing dependant in a different way. I dread the idea of being mentally alert, yet physically confined. 

My daughter-in-law is a carer in a home for the elderly demented. She sees so many people who have been diminished.  She tries to give the personal touch to each. 

When my son - her husband -died -at her feet - she tried to revive him by means of her CPR training. It failed. 

All of which is to say that some of us have been denied the opportunity to carry on. I live with never-ending pain.  I'll never have fusion surgery; it wouldn't make my condition better. 

And, yes, I DO feel like I'm on eggshells here. When most report positive results from surgery, I feel that I'm the spectre at the feast. The one lone, negative voice.

 

10

Maggi, I am so sorry if anything I have referred to has offended you. I would be about the last person to intentionally say or do anything to hurt another person ever. In as much as I was diagnosed with Cervical Spondylitis @ age 34 after traumatic injury after a car accident, of course I know what you are going through. It is a terrible thing to deal with the worst possible pain imaginable, but to live day in and day out thinking that it is always going to be like this is a nightmare. I was only 34 when that teen crashed into the rear of my stopped car and I was forced to go tnrough the pits of hell every day for the next 10 yrs, so yes, I understand that not everyone starts having back problems in middle age. And believe me when I say that my heart goes out to you in ways you aren't even aware of. If I could afford to buy you a motorized wheelchair so you could get up that hill unassisted to visit your son, I would. And if I didn't live in the States with you in the UK, things might be different, but the simple fact is, when I sought out this forum, I was 10 weeks post op Decompression Laminectomy and Lumbar fusion. Most of the folks that seek out these sites do so because they hope to link with someone who has or is going through the same. There is usually a definite etiology behind back pain.....injury of some kind, birth defect, disease process, etc. And surgery isn't always the answer. At this time in my life, I was not able to tolerate the pain as well as I did in my 30s, plus there is a significant diff between the weight of the head putting pressure down on a cervical nerve than the weight from the top of your head down to the hips on a herniated disc that is impinging one or both Sciatic Nerves. I was one of the fortunate ones and my heart goes out to those that haven't been. Any time I respond or offer an opinion, it is either coming from the fact that I was an Ortho/Neuro

Nurse for over 33 yrs or I have personal experience. It has never been my intention to influence anyone one way or the other. So in saying that, I pray that it has lifted your spirits, for I can read between the lines and see that you aren't in a good place right now. Please don't give up. I am going to back out of patient.info now and wish everone God's speed.

Patricia

11

Hi Patricia,

i have not twisted this weekend. Seriously i feel ok today i had a twinge of pain in my lower back and buttock but it went and i haven't taken tramadol for 3 days. Week 8 on Tuesday. I slept on the couch last night as i was watching a movie and all comfy surrounded by cushions and duvets.

still not sleeping right through but getting a couple of hours straight. 

Its sunny here and i am just about to head to the cemetary to put flowers for my stepson and going to sit for a drink in a local pub called the church and 

relax. My back doesn't like sitting for long as i am sure you know so a light walk later.

hope you are doing well and haven't overdone it in your garden x 

12

Dear Maggi, your not a negative voice, i don't read your posts that way at all.

in fact i admire your strength it is not easy living in constant pain and having other health issues.

i am thinking of you.

laura xx 

 

13

Patricia your message there was beautiful to maggi. I wish i could help others to i all comes down to the £ or dollar in your case. 

I sought out this site to see others experiences and you have brought me comfort with your own experiences, i felt very alone but i am not 

14

dear Patricia,

please dont back out of forum, i find your experience comforting and interesting xx