Hi Everyone:
What to do?
The pain has been so bad at times that it has literally brought me to my knees in tears. Given my level of facet disease (around a level 3) and the two completely collapsed discs (bone on bone) it amazes me that I've held on for going on three years; that's when things started getting really bad.
I didn't want to be fused to the sacrum because it seems like the results are all over the place and I do not want to replace my pain with the "broom handle butt" feeling. Plus, the horror of having two surgeries and being cut open front and back is enough to bring back my considerable Post traumatic Stress Disorder from my first two surgeries when I screamed my way through 48 hours in ICU. I still have PTSD thirty years later. However, I was actually beginning to consider the surgery, and I know everyone here will understand that point when you say: "Self, we can't live like this anymore." But now the surgeon I was consulting with has told me that my pain is atypical and that surgery MIGHT help with some of the fatigue and achy pain, but that my chances of relief are between 20-80% and that even if it does help me, say, forty percent, that it still would only help the pain between 20-80%. She would not narrow down the numbers. They are not very good numbers. She said my pain was "atypical" in that I have almost NO leg or radicular pain, just deep achy pain, fatigue, and now, these past three months, HORRIBLE thoracic pain - achy and burning- and neck fatigue and pain. I was told the surgery would not help with thoracic pain, is this correct? I feel like a building with no foundation - I have a solid fusion but literally crumbling underneath. To further complicate things, I did not react well to having metal in my body before, which is why I had a hardware removal. This metal today is similar enough to the Harrington rods that this is a major problem, and that is the surgeon's words. Even if I had the surgery, suffered for two years with being unable to sit and broom handle, and then had another hardware removal, the Peek spacers or whatever they're called would have to stay in, right? And I believe those are made of metal.
I've now had EVERY type of epidural and spinal injection known to man, all to no effect. Physical therapy in the pool is killing me. I'm living on pain meds, which none of us like to do. This can't go on!
I'm only 49 and I feel like my life is virtually over. I literally at times can't walk one block. If I could find someone to fuse me ALL from the back (posterior) with NO metal and no spacers (I don't want to be taller as I won't be able to get in and out of my car) then I would do it. But apparently this is not possible?
If anyone has any ideas, or knows about some other surgery options I don't, I'd be grateful if you would write in.
Thanks much,
What to do?
The pain has been so bad at times that it has literally brought me to my knees in tears. Given my level of facet disease (around a level 3) and the two completely collapsed discs (bone on bone) it amazes me that I've held on for going on three years; that's when things started getting really bad.
I didn't want to be fused to the sacrum because it seems like the results are all over the place and I do not want to replace my pain with the "broom handle butt" feeling. Plus, the horror of having two surgeries and being cut open front and back is enough to bring back my considerable Post traumatic Stress Disorder from my first two surgeries when I screamed my way through 48 hours in ICU. I still have PTSD thirty years later. However, I was actually beginning to consider the surgery, and I know everyone here will understand that point when you say: "Self, we can't live like this anymore." But now the surgeon I was consulting with has told me that my pain is atypical and that surgery MIGHT help with some of the fatigue and achy pain, but that my chances of relief are between 20-80% and that even if it does help me, say, forty percent, that it still would only help the pain between 20-80%. She would not narrow down the numbers. They are not very good numbers. She said my pain was "atypical" in that I have almost NO leg or radicular pain, just deep achy pain, fatigue, and now, these past three months, HORRIBLE thoracic pain - achy and burning- and neck fatigue and pain. I was told the surgery would not help with thoracic pain, is this correct? I feel like a building with no foundation - I have a solid fusion but literally crumbling underneath. To further complicate things, I did not react well to having metal in my body before, which is why I had a hardware removal. This metal today is similar enough to the Harrington rods that this is a major problem, and that is the surgeon's words. Even if I had the surgery, suffered for two years with being unable to sit and broom handle, and then had another hardware removal, the Peek spacers or whatever they're called would have to stay in, right? And I believe those are made of metal.
I've now had EVERY type of epidural and spinal injection known to man, all to no effect. Physical therapy in the pool is killing me. I'm living on pain meds, which none of us like to do. This can't go on!
I'm only 49 and I feel like my life is virtually over. I literally at times can't walk one block. If I could find someone to fuse me ALL from the back (posterior) with NO metal and no spacers (I don't want to be taller as I won't be able to get in and out of my car) then I would do it. But apparently this is not possible?
If anyone has any ideas, or knows about some other surgery options I don't, I'd be grateful if you would write in.
Thanks much,
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