Well, this is a bummer.

By coincidence I attended a 10 hr seminar yesterday on chronic pain.(mostly headache and fibro).

One brilliant speaker, was explaining some hypothalamic neurostim experiments and shared with the audience (many doctors in the mixed audience), that TIME is an essential factor to consider. In treating certain intractable HAs, neuro stim was tried in the hypothalamus, and when no effects seemed apparent dropped. However, in Europe they left the electrodes in and over a YEAR, improvement occurred. Now here they are going to try again. They never expected up to a YEAR to be needed at least for this procedure. So he cautioned all in the audience to be paitent with patients...give TIME a chance. His name is Todd D. Rozen MD. If you Google him there are many articles on the net which he used in his portion of the program.
Here is a sample of the content of the lecture I attended...
http://www.achenet.org/articles/84.php
The melatonin information was fascinating! I will be putting that up on the Headache forum here soon.

I am now preparing a very interesting thread on Fibromyalgia, to share what was said yesterday which I found very interesting and helpful. I'll be putting that up here at NT this weekend.

But back to TIME. What concerns me is that you wll have to "fuse" the new
surgery --and what if your assumptions as to fusion failure are not complete....in that there may be other physiological factors involved besides the drugs you took, by accident? This procedure seems very extreme and invasive. I can't see you being flexible at all after it. (you are not flexible now)


I have never had invasive procedures in my back...I am not very flexible due to arthiritis/spurring etc and some spondo... but I live with it. Some days I have pain..others not. I have chronic pain from falls, PN, etc. I manage. I don't expect much now at my age...so just being able to get around, do most things is my goal. I don't use opiates, but I use patches (Salonpas and Lidoderms), some Tylenol on some days, and 600mg Ibuprofen on days I work. My knees are painful, my leg injury and now my lower back/pelvis is acting up some. (my job involves lifting weight and moving around)
I use AlkaSeltzer several times a week as well. I rest alot, some days and now see positive results with my light visor.

Liza...you need to balance your goals, with careful thought to the highly invasive nature of this new proposed procedure. I personally would measure the TIME and see if you really get worse. You may not. Doctors are very fallible. If you deteriorate significantly with TIME...then you can be prepared for those alternatives.