I have had back pain since the end of 99 when I was rear ended by a passenger van and after much pain and 10-15 Dr's I found one that would do the fusion (a 3 level, l1-l2 and l3 and he promised me at least a 50% decrease in pain so I had it and now when I hear the word surgery I run like the wind (only in my mind of course) instead of 4 days in hosp it was 12 and NS slipped and cut my spinal cord twice and I bled into my spinal fluid which gave me Arachnoiditsis, a condition with no cure....I only thought I knew what pain was before, now I would give it all to turn back time. I take morphine (long acting) 100mg 3x day and 15mg fast acting 2 x day, Valium 10mg 10mg 3 times a day if I want to urinate (it left me with paralysis of bladder and bowel , my left arm is numb and the numbness travels everywhere except for from the waist to the thighs and my left arm is constant .I feel nothing other then the constant pain that all the meds in the world will never make it go away! I fall all the time without any warning. I have no friends and even family avoids me either because they think I am a junkie or because I won't give them any and friends are out of the question because it takes everything in me to just survive the day. I wished I had researched more and listened to all the Dr's that said no. I wish you the best, but be very careful because what they left me with is for life. They tried to talk me into having surgery on left arm and I said Hell No!! Never again for me.....I used to be a nurse before this and look at me now
I am not trying to scare you off, just sharing my story, my surgery was 6-15-06.