You don't need a neurosurgeon to do the discogram. An orhtopedic surgeon can order it. My orhto had a physiatrist ( MD) do the discogram at the hospital. It does not take long at all.

I had an orthopedic surgeon and a neurosurgeon for my surgery, plus a vascular surgeon. I never even met the neurosurgeon. He just did surgery in concert with my orthopedic sureon who specializes in spine surgery.

Call the office once in a while in the mornings. Once in a blue moon they have a cancellation. It took 6 weeks after my appt. with the spinal surgeon to have surgery.

For pain try a pain mgmt doctor, perhaps someone the neurosurgeon's office suggests. I had 3 epidurals to help ct the pain.

I was on percocets at first. They make you sleepy. 2 at a time was not covering the pain the last 2 weeks b/f surgery, but I refused to take more. After surgery you are on a morphine pump. Shots for pain are way more painful. After surgery I was put on dilaudin which is less sedating.

Now once in a blue moon I take a 1/4 of a pain pill if I forget and bend a little more than I should. Such an improvement!! No shooting nerve pain, no limping!! Yahoo!

(I did get in a month earlier to see my surgeon because someone cancelled.)

Thank you Starfish for replying.

It is the Ortho consult that DH is waiting on, but so far there are no appointments before October. He said he'd do what you said about ringing for cancellations though, because even he agrees that October is far too long to wait when he's in so much pain.

Thank you again, it's so kind of you to take an interest.

I had a 3 level fusion recommended and I actually improved enough from conservative care that I did not have the fusion.

I can give you some thought about my situation, maybe it will help, I don't know since I don't know the details of your husband's case and obviously I am not a doctor.

I had quite large herniations. The surgeons seemed in general to think you could wait on a decision to have surgery if the main symptoms was pain. If there is significant nerve compression to your spinal cord or the nerves to your limbs, then waiting a long time to have surgery is not a good idea. If the nerves are compressed more than a year or so, then they tend not to recover as well if at all after surgery. If you are waiting on a surgery decision, it can be good to get epidural steroid injections as that removes some of the irritating chemicals that can damage the vascular supply to the nerves and the injection can help his pain levels.

If he has a big enough herniation, the herniation can sometimes reach an area where it get to substances in the body that can dissolve it. You still have pain because the disk is still damaged but it can be much less because the nerve compression gets better. Sometimes the disk itself still hurts as much as the nerve compression, sometimes it hurts less. A diskogram can help tell if it's the disk itself causing pain. In my case the disk herniation pressure on the spinal cord was much more painful than the disk pain itself. They can not tell in advance if the disk herniation will dissolve.

The herniations did dissolve in my case and I had compression both to the spinal cord and in the nerves to my leg. I still have pain and cannot do as much as I did before but most of the time the pain is manageable if I do not overdo it.

I worked very hard on strengthening the muscles supporting my spine and I still get steroid injections every few months into my spine. Both make quite a difference in my pain. The strengthening took me a couple years before I really notice a big improvement in my pain but I was unusually weak since it took them years to diagnosis the problem.

One rule of thumb I got for a spine surgeon was that if you are improving 10% per month, then continuing to try conservative care is a good idea (as long as there no compression likely to cause nerve damage.)

Neither conservative care or surgery will get you back to where you were before the spinal problem if the spine problem is bad enough but in my case I did get about as much pain relief from conservative care as the surgeon said I could expect from the surgery.

Hi Kola, it must be noted that if a spinal problem is progessivily getting worse it is caused by doing or not doing something. Herneated disks heal if treated properly in spite of what the mainstream medical community will tell you.

I wish you and your family the best of luck
,Mike

Thank you so much Mike. My hubby is finally getting some pain relief now, and although inadequate, he's at least in less pain than he was before.

His appointment with the Spinal Specialist isn't until October, but as this year is speeding by, the day will be here before we know it.

Thank you again for taking the time to reply. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

quick update on me...
 

I had my fusion surgery about 5 weeks ago. The first 48 hours were a bear; but I was walking the next day, home in two; off ALL meds in two weeks. I walk with no braces or crutches and go to physical therapy (pool) 3 times a week. The pain I had before surgery is gone; completely!! I do have 'recuperative" pain which is managable with Tylenol. My Docs. have said that I am ahead of schedule, but that this is marathon and not a sprint. I still wont be back at work anytime soon and my range of motion is somewhat limited (I am not suposed to bend at the waist) I am honestly amazed at how good I feel knowing how invasive this surgery was (it took 7 hours).. Anyone with fears of surgery, find a good Doctor, trust them, and get on with youyr life; I cant believe I waited 3 years!!!

my dad has DDD, stenosis & arthritis no herniation's though- he was gradually beginning to hurt more and more after being fairly stable for awhile - goes to the PT place 2-3x a week and can use the equipment to continue with self care therapy per the PT plan that was made for him.
Has TENS for use at home too.

surgery was being considered - dad wasn't ready to do that yet... then the dr suggested a re evaluation by the PT and that seems to be really making a difference for him.

I was wondering if the drs have rx'd any PT {for pain relief at the very least} or even a TENS - these are simple things but may help to make him a more comfortable until the appt in Oct.

Thank you Mike for that update, and I'm so pleased that you finally got relief. I do hope my DH doesn't end up having to have surgery, but at least it's good to know that if it is necessary, there are success stories out there.

Thank you also Jo55. DH has done the physio thing over and over, but each time it only made his pain worse. He even tried hydrotherapy but the chlorine level in the pool was so high that he know has a rather nasty allergic dermatitis to deal with as well. He just can't seem to take a trick!

He has tried the TENS machine and he did get some limited pain relief, but even that was short lived. He would try anything ever thought of, not to have surgery of any type but he's running ut of options.

Because of the severe chlorine induced dermatitis from the heated pool, he can't have any heat therapy to his back, as that only breaks down his skin all over again.

He's tried ice, but that didn't work, and at present he's trying magnets. He does say that the pain has eased quite a lot since he started wearing a belt that has been studded with magnets, across the most painful areas of his back. Seeing the magnets are actually helping I thought I'd buy an underlay for our bed and see how he goes with that.

He also has started a new analgesic patch (Toredol) and that combined with Epilum (for the nerve pain) he is at least getting some pain relief, where he had none before.