Should I be working?
 

I had an ATV accident at work three years ago and I herniated 8 spinal disks - 5 cervical and three thoracic. The pain has been a nightmare and I am currently up to 40mg/day of hydrocodone to manage the pain and I continue to work on light duties. My doctor has been ineffective and I just recently changed (hoping for a more attentive doctor). I have tried everything from laser light therapy to ESIs.

My injuries have not improved in three years. My most recent MRI (Jun23) shows that my cervical hernias have worsened (increased in size) and are now causing moderate flattening of the cord with moderate to severe foramenal stenosis on the affected disks.

Except for a short period of temporary disability, I have worked continuously since my injuries on light duty. Much of my work is sitting down and working at the computer - though I do also have to do a lot of walking, as well.
Due to the pain, my activity in my personal life is practically zero.

My concern is that my continued working is causing my condition to deteriorate to dangerous conditions. Like many Workers Comp doctors, my doctor will ask ME if I want to keep working. I am like an athlete that will try to shake off a serious injury, get pumped with a steroid, and get back in the game. I want to work. But I am now worried that I am seriously harming myself by continued work. I rely on my doctor to know what is best for me, but they all seem to not even know or care. They'll just do whatever you say. I even had a doctor ask ME what I wanted to do - I answered that I wanted to get fixed.

Dose anyone have any knowledge or experience or advice about what to do with worsening disk hernias? What kind of activity will cause a cervical disk hernia to get worse?

Hello Imito
 

Sorry to hear that you are having disk issues. I had the same, and am now fused C3-7. Prior to that I worked, at a job that made the condition worse. I hated to quit, and I still do miss it. However I didn't want further complications of remaining vertebra. This is a very personal choice, and you have to be the one to decide if this is hurting you. I didn't seek the second surgery, it was my doctors, several in fact that said I had to do it. Seek all PT, conservative measures before you think about any surgical solution. Surgery is always a last resort. Have you tried Ketamine Infusions? This helped me for a number of months, given by a pain specialist. I hope you find some relief with whatever you decide to do. ginnie:grouphug:

My most sincere thanks for your reply. I haven't tried Ketamine but I will discuss it with my new Doc. I am not as concerned about pain. It is terrible but I am the type of person that will fight against it as best as I can (the drugs do help but the dosages keep going up and the effectiveness keeps going down). Although there are times when the pain has me crawling on the floor crying for my mama. Usually after I do too much activity like trying to play with my grandson for more than 10 minutes.

My major concern is that I don't want to end up with myelopathy or irreversible damage to my spinal cord. I'm already noticing leg weakness (they feel trembly and I am not comfortable standing without holding on to something), gait changes, and loss of bowel urgency (I only go to the bathroom because I make sure to go at least every other day. Except for sensing pressure in my front-lower abdomen, I have diminished sense of when my bowel is full). My new Doc told me that the loss of bowel urgency could not be related to my cervical hernias (hope I didn't make a mistake with changing to him). He said the nerves in the cervical spine had nothing to do with the bowel.