[aewatts]

I am a 21 year old female trying to decide whether or not to have a lumbar laminectomy at the end of this year. Here's a little bit about what I've already been through…

My whole life I have ridden horses competitively, played golf, and played volleyball-all things bad for your back. But at 17, I took a fall off of one of my horses. Everything was fine after the accident until about 2 weeks later when I began to have sharp pain in my buttocks/hip/upper thigh. At first, it was bearable, but it got increasingly worse. It was always worse after exercise. With a few months time (about 4, I'd say) I finally caved and went to an orthopedic doctor. Since my only real complaint was "hip" pain, she x-rayed my hips and said they were fine. I walked out with a diagnosis of SI joint dysfunction and a prescription for physical therapy.

Well, I decided to take my therapy into my own hands, still continuing to play sports and ride horses. It got worse and worse. Finally, I caved again and went to a sports chiropractic and physical therapy clinic where I began having trigger point massages, doing hip exercises, and having spinal manipulation. My doctor encouraged me to exercise as much as I could as long as I wasn't in pain. Well, I took that, ran with it, and joined a cross fit gym. I lasted in cross fit for about 3 months when I began to develop sharp shooting pain in my lower right leg and buttocks and numbness and tingling in my foot that never seemed to go away. My chiropractor ordered an MRI and found that I have one 9 mm herniated disc at L4/L5 and one 5 mm herniated disc at L5/S1. She considered them severe for someone my size and told me that most people with herniations like mine would not even want to get out of bed.

This is when I began spinal decompression and totally backed off the exercise. Exercise was too painful at this point, but I continued to ride and play sports at first. Eventually my chiropractor convinced me that I needed to stop everything if I was going to give it a real shot to heal on its own.

After a few months of dry needling, physical therapy, icing, spinal manipulation, massages, tinge units, and decompression, I eased back with some core exercises and stationary bike. I had to learn my limits. Slowly the leg pain, numbness, and tingling started to become intermittent, and I began to figure out the exact things that would flare it up. The back pain eased a bit, but remained fairly constant. The last symptom to improve was the sharp dullness in my hips (worse on the right side).

Continuing to go to the chiropractor for another year to "manage" my symptoms, I realized that it was silly to keep paying for something that only made me feel better for a day or two afterwards. There weren't any more drastic improvements to be made. The therapy helped me a lot initially, but it was starting to plateau.

I haven't gone to a chiropractor in at least 8 months now, and I have been easing back into lifting weights. I am extremely careful and do not mess with anything that strains my back or compresses my spine. I stay away from jumping, running, and lifting things above my head unless it's very light. I opt for more yoga than I used to. It helps keep my muscles loose when they want to tighten up. I am pretty strong, but I could afford to lose about 30 lbs. (I have also developed hypothyroidism which makes this very challenging, but that's another discussion! )

My current symptoms are persistent back pain that gets worse with sitting or standing for long periods or overdoing it in the gym. My right buttocks hurts pretty consistently, but it's not near as bad as it used to be. I have some pain on the side of my upper right thigh and tightness in my right hip flexors. I still have intermittent pain, numbness, and tingling in my lower right leg. This is my biggest concern as it gets worse if I do anything differently in the gym, ride a horse, play a round of golf, or play volleyball. When the leg stuff flares up, I know it's time for me to back off. It's an indication that my back is extra inflamed.

Anywho, sorry for the excessive details. I just feel like I've hit a wall and am curious if anyone out there knows of anymore tricks to try! I'm giving it until the end of the year. If the nonsense doesn't stop by then, I will be having a lumbar laminectomy with no fusion by Dr. Stanley Jones in Houston.

Also, if any of you have had a lumbar laminectomy-how did it turn out? Are you still in pain? Have you had to have more surgeries down the road? Did you opt for laser surgery or regular discectomy? How long was the recovery?

Thanks for any help you can give!