[QUOTE=Jetty;315375]HI, Abby

I'm a gal who has had many spine surgeries to to a hyperelastic spine (rubber lady)


-- they did not use my hip bone, and I seem to be recovering nicely. Thanks.

Hi everyone. I want to thank kiwimike and abbygirl312 for all their posts of encouragement to others. This is the first time I have not read posts that made me want to faint.
On the 18th I am going to have a bi-level fusion L4-L5-S1. I have had reoccurent foot drop and intense lower back and leg pain/and numbness. I also have three children.
My question is how long do you think it would be before I could lift my three year old? She is 32 pounds and we have always enjoyed lots of hugs and the like. I will have the help of my mother for the first month but after that it will be mostly myself. I am 36. Also any tips would be great. Thanks.

wow, what a great thread. i wish i had found this earlier. both before my first surgery, and just earlier now, before i started posting around the net.

i'm 30. i did gymnastics for about 10 years, and competed for 7 of those 10. my doctors and i agree this prolly gave me minor problems from the outset.

september 07, i fell two feet, landed square on my butt, and within a day or two developed completely incapacitating pain in my lower back, and down my left leg.

(drama edited out - hospitals suck, btw. if you're insanely curious, i did write a very amusing blog of my experience, email me and i'll forward it to you. just be nice or i'll throw poo at you )

turns out i had ruptured/herniated/bulged my L5/S1 disc 13 MM onto my spine. through the hurry and pain and drugs (that first hospital had me on about a dozen things), the doctor just went with a microdiscectomy (small cut in back, small hole in vertebrae, they scrape out the disc 'ooze', sew you back up).

morphine didn't work for me, it just made me dizzy, no pain relief. diladid worked great. i don't know what that stuff is, but it worked. percocet at home worked, too. and no prollems coming off of it.

then i was ok for a few months, after the PT, of course.

then the pain came back.

my new doctor (the old one was kind of a jerk) says i have scar tissue buildup, and my disc is so 'deflated', the vertebrae on top of it is flopping around and hitting my spine again. he wants to try epidural cortisone injections, along with another round of PT. i'm not confident this will work, since it didn't last time.

the other option, so he says, is a L5/S1 fusion. i'm only 30....well... 31 in a few weeks, but that's hardly old, and i don't have any family history of spinal stenosis or other bone problems, so i'm not worried about that. AND the doctor wants to go in ANTERIORLY, which, since he has a colleague who regularly does this (it's the other guy's specialty), and the way he explained it, i'm not worried about that. i'm not particularly worried about the fusion itself, either. rehab is going to SUCK, but after that, the man says i can go horseback riding. he also says that my loss of flexibility will be minimal, if i even notice it at all.

i'm also not worried about the doctor. first, he's old. and still practicing, so he hasn't been sued into retirement. also, he was one of like 15 doctors nationwide asked to participate in disc replacement experimentation, so i'm guessing he knows his stuff.



what i AM worried about is going under the knife. again. and the eviceration. not for the sake of the actual cutting (well, that's another subject), but for the additional rehab'ing. i'm also worried if i'll really be THAT capable again. i hurt right now. pretty much all the time, but as long as i stay as lazy as possible (i can't walk more than 15 minutes before i get bad back pain), i'm mostly ok. but what kind of life is that? and i'm putting on weight, and worried about keeping my girl around (at least the rest of me works ).



WILL it be ok? WILL i be able to be as active as a 30-something body should be? how common ARE staph infections? how LONG will it take until i can drive to the grocery store? how long until i can walk my dog for an hour? how long until i've reached maximum medical improvement (MMI)? what kind of settlement should i try to get out of my worker's comp (which, thank god, union labor mandates)? can i avoid bm's be having nothing but soup broth? (sitting on and getting up from the toilet REALLY hurt post-op, and i'll be damned if i need help wiping)

at the very least, thanks for keeping this going, especially you mike!

justin

Hi Busymom - I would talk to your doctor for an estimate. But even then, I'd see what you think you can handle. I pushed myself some in my inpatience to heel. I lifted a of case of water about 6 weeks into it and rapidly determined that wasn't such a great idea. I gave it more time and tried lifting 12pks first. I can tell you that now 10 months later, I can lift a case of paper at the office but my staff really frowns on it and hurries to help, and probably with good reason. If I were in your shoes, I'd play it by ear (or backpain?). Don't overdo it but maybe lift smaller items first just to see how it feels. I had a 5 year old want to sit in my lap a few months into it, and I asked her to climb up. That worked for both of us. Good luck to you!

Just wondered if you had the bone taken from your hip or the bone bank? Have heard that the pain is almost as bad from the bome harvesting as the surgery itself. Im in the same boat as you were in, having suffered for 13 plus years. How did everything turn out for you?

Hey All!

Yes im still around and thought it was about time i checked in here again to see if the thread is still going and to my joy, it is!....well im into my 7th year now since my Op and since i started this thread!, my how time flys, things are great and the back is as good as ever i am glad to report!....i'm 37 now and yes not a day goes by that i don't feel my little friends down there in my lower back holding everything together and keeping me pain free, but like i've said before , it doesn't hurt at all and its a nice reminder of where i came from and to look after my back. In saying that i still play football every week, i also hit the gym 4 or 5 times a week now, nothing holds me back (no pun intended) , maintaining the muscle strength is also key to preventing any damage and giving support to the rods that hold everything together, hence i try to stay active and fit, in saying walking is just as good as anything if that's all you are able to do, this also helps with your flexibility (of which i have lost nothing, i can still touch my toes and twist fine). I am going to go back and answers a few previous posts if they aren't to old and if anyone has any questions , please ask and i'll try to advise as best i can and check this on a more regular basis. Yes my reason's for starting this thread were to counter all the horror stories i read like yourselves when i was pre-op. Im glad to see this has reassured so many out there and to also read of your own success stories

Cheers!
Mike

Hey mate,

I had bone taken from my hip, but now i understand that they can use a synthetic lab grown bone (my mates wife is going in and shes using the lab grown bone but its not cheap!) , i would go for that if its an option though as the location where they took the bone from my hip was painful for three times as long as the op. location itself.

Cheers
Mike

Hi Mike,

I've enjoyed reading your posts on here--I'm scheduled for a fusion on Jan 32008 because of multiple reherniations on L4/L5 and L5/S1. I'm glad you posted your story because the more I read about fusions on the internet, the more scared I get!

I just wanted to know how you are doing now? I'm (was) pretty active: skydiver, paraglider, SCUBA and BASE jumper. Now I'm so scared I won't be able to do those things anymore! But it seems like you can pretty much do what you want to do now . . .

Thanks!

Firstly to all, sorry for the slackness in replies i didn't know there had been posts and questions! , please forgive me, ok now to answer you , no worries about posting my story i hope it gives you encouragement and please don't be scared! , we are all here with you and will support you! , i to was very active throughout my life till the pain got to much for me and i had the op (i to sky dived, played football and scuba dived) the first few days after the op i thought i had done the wrong thing, the pain was so intense and i felt like a 90 year old man!...lol...(the first time i stood up after the op i passed out from the pain, but then again i was on no pain meds at all due to a reaction to them)but ignore those thoughts!, you will get better quickly and you will do all those things you love to do again , trust me , just give it time, be patient, one month out of your life to let your body heal and get better is a small price to pay for a life going forward of pain free trouble if you do things right (ie listen to your body take it easy and lots of walking!, walk walk walk until your body says rest , you will know what this means when the time comes and start small at first , my first walk was only 5 meters) ok its nearly my one year anniversary this 23rd dec!..woohoo! and i feel great, i'm playing sport,sky diving and scuba diving and running without pain, honestly this op. changed my life my friends, i'm happy, getting a girlfriend now would be the icing on the cake...lol...but otherwise i'm great, no loss of flexibility, i can still touch my toes (i think crossing the 30 year mark in my life has more to do with losing that now than anything..lol) sciatica has completely gone, no stiffness of muscles after doing exercise, i can lift things without trouble, i can stand up straight after sitting in a chair for more than 30 mins straight without having to place my hands on my lower back to right myself ( do these things sounds familiar ??) no numbness in my legs and i can stand for 3 hours straight watching a concert with getting sciatica (could never do that before, had to squat down every 30 mins or so to relieve the nerve pain) , ok thats enough blabbing from me, hope this helps and please keep me updated mate! i'll be thinking of you

Michael

Hi Mike, good to meet you. I had the same surgery in 2002 and have never regretted it. I have continued to have other spinal degeneration and still deal with pain but it is nowhere near the pain that I had before my first surgery! I have a wonderful ortho surgeon and I went the whole route of conservative treatments for years before fusion. By that time I would have done anything to reduce the pain. I know that there are more spinal problems in my future but I am still moving and can even still play some golf on good days! So you are right, there are successful surgeries being done all the time. Think positively!
Kat