Well it’s looking like I may be facing another spine surgery soon. My injury that I’ve spoken of before was at L4 but something has happened to my low thoracic area. For a week now I’ve been in so much pain that I’ve been tempted to go to the ER. If I hadn’t been a paramedic in the past I might go but I know there’s nothing they can do. I saw my pain management doc and she sent me for new MRI scans. For whatever reason they split them up on two different days. I had the thoracic area done today. The tech said “your scan looks real good, there’s good information here and they’ll know what’s wrong”. The Rad Tech’s never offer any thoughts on what they see so I thought this was odd… there’s obviously something there. I go back Thursday for the lumbar scan to see all my old injured area that’s been previously fused. I’m in so much chronic pain, it’s really wearing me down. Right now this new thoracic pain feels like a knife is being pushed into my spine, it wraps around the ribs under my right arm. I haven’t slept well in days.

The thought of *another* surgery freaks me out, especially if it’s something akin to a fusion. The previous two were HELL for me recovery wise… but I also am at my wits end with this. I’m sick of drugs and injections. The thought of what state I’ll be in, in the future really frightens me.

I have an appointment with a new highly rated surgeon Thursday, he wants to see all the imaging I’m getting done. I’m trying to get as many opinions / advice/ information as I can.

I’m not new to this but I am frustrated as you all can obviously tell. If anyone has any input, suggestions or thoughts I’d really appreciate it. I’m at a loss.., thanks for listening

I hear you. I struggle with SI and L4/L5. It's ongoing and has progressed over about six years now. They want to do the fusion, but I'm not crawling out of my skin miserable yet, and fusions look terrible to me from the "success" story journey videos on YT. If that's a good one, I'm out!

You've got to finish out the diagnostic photo shoot and go get the news. My only advice is this. Find a good doc you trust to advise you of this -- who is a more conservative surgeon, vs who is a little more proactive or aggressive (speaking in terms of decision making and approach).

I went to three surgeons based on advice from a trusted ER doc, and a primary care doc. Two want to do surgery, but in a different manner. One said not yet.

I find the differences cause for pause. So I'm still on the PT train.

Thanks rOgue. I’m beside myself here.. the lack of sleep is really wearing me down. My pain doc called in an RX of Oxymorphone just to take sparingly at night so I can sleep until we get things figured out, that was Monday. Still waiting on them to get it in stock. They keep saying it’ll be here tomorrow.

Dry, I injured discs at L3/L4 and L4/L5 in 2006, and had surgery in 2017. Luckily the surgery was 100% successful, though I have other back issues causing mostly minor intermittent pain which surgery wouldn't improve.

My regular doc's advice was to avoid surgery until you can't stand it any longer. Also, her experience was that good candidates for surgery usually had really good outcomes, meaning that the exact cause(s) for the pain were identified and are repairable.

It sounds like you have reached the threshold of just not being able to stand it, and the cause is going to be clear in the imaging. Which means the odds are good that surgery will be very successful for you.

sorry to hear Fly-sig. Prayers for comfort and relief. And a good outcome if surgery is needed. Hang tough brother.

Thank y’all for the input. I’m so sleepy I feel like I’m in a fog. Last night sucked. Thanks for letting me vent. If anyone has more input or advice please lay it on me! Thank y’all.

Sorry you're going through that. It's miserable. I've had three spine surgeries. The first involved a single level of the cervical spine. Some 20 years later, it involved C2-C7. That turned out much better than expected. There was a small decrease in side-to-side range of motion and the inescapable touch of arthritis, but compared to the state of things pre-op, I count all three C-spine surgeries as having been very successful.

The second C-spine surgery was followed by a single-level lumbar spine surgery as soon as I had recovered sufficiently from the C-spine surgery. Despite it being single-level, I was much more worried about the L-spine surgery having observed and known numerous people who had experienced results which were less than what they had expected going into it. It turned out to be one of those cases where the operation was a success but...

I've had serious issues since involving symptoms that are seemingly musculoskeletal in nature which no one has been able to get a handle on. I've been down the physical therapy path several times and also the NSAID medication route without meaningful relief. Standing triggers serious discomfort in the lumbar area which ultimately spreads to the entire back and walking further exacerbates that discomfort until it becomes necessary to sit down to gain relief.

Whatever route you decide to take, I would suggest you first do exhaustive research, ask as many questions as you can think of and and do not be afraid to look far beyond your local area for second opinions. Wishing you all the best.

Typically the spine is growing into a twisted shape, and over time discs compress causing both local and referred pain. If the vertebrae's are fused, you will receive some temporary relief. However the cause of the spine's incorrect curvatures is not being addressed.

The kink in the spine moves to a different location, as one area has been locked in place with the fusion. 99.9% of the time the cause of the curvatures is a misalignment in the upper cervical area.

Properly realigning this area will make huge improvement, and take out some of the curvatures. Upper cervical chiropractors who do this, and who take both pre and post x-rays of the upper cervical spine, usually have excellent success. Those DCs are usually specialists using the NUCCA system, Atlas-Orthogonal, or similar techniques. Realigning the upper cervical area can be difficult, but the results are usually excellent.

Good input folks, thanks again. The spine surgeon I’m seeing tomorrow, after I get my second scan, is a Ret. Lt. Col. He was a doc in the Air Force. His resume is quite impressive. We’ll see how it goes.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:

Properly realigning this area will make huge improvement, and take out some of the curvatures. Upper cervical chiropractors who do this, and who take both pre and post x-rays of the upper cervical spine, usually have excellent success. Those DCs are usually specialists using the NUCCA system, Atlas-Orthogonal, or similar techniques. Realigning the upper cervical area can be difficult, but the results are usually excellent.

Thanks for that info!