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Started to get pain in my lower left back, left hip, lower left leg and ankle. The pain went on for a month without medication, because the Doctor believed sciatica goes down the leg and involves the whole leg. He was dead wrong.
Finally got him to get me a xray. Well, after seeing the mess in my whole spinal lumbar area, he got me some medication, but the insurance company refused to pay for medication strong enough. What I got was no relief from the pain.
I went for a MRI and they found that I have 3 protuding lumbar discs one of which is sitting right on the left branch of the sciatic nerve. Plus bone spurs and my tail bone tends to stick on one side. I see the Neuro-surgeon July 15, 2005.
Well, the insurance company was forced to pay for the generic form of Vicodin and it works pretty well. -
Started to get pain in my lower left back, left hip, lower left leg and ankle. The pain went on for a month without medication, because the Doctor believed sciatica goes down the leg and involves the whole leg. He was dead wrong.
Finally got him to get me a xray. Well, after seeing the mess in my whole spinal lumbar area, he got me some medication, but the insurance company refused to pay for medication strong enough. What I got was no relief from the pain.
I went for a MRI and they found that I have 3 protuding lumbar discs one of which is sitting right on the left branch of the sciatic nerve. Plus bone spurs and my tail bone tends to stick on one side. I see the Neuro-surgeon July 15, 2005.
Well, the insurance company was forced to pay for the generic form of Vicodin and it works pretty well.Update: well it appears to be getting worse. I may have to try to get into the neuro-surgeon sooner.
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Update:
Well it seems I will have to have surgery to repair the worse disc between R4 & R5.
He wants to try a steroid injection into the area of R4 & R5 first.
I am an overweight man and he really does not like to perform surgery on an overweight person. All the equipment is made for normal weight people. There is a greater risk of heart attack during the procedure for someone who is overweight.
He gives normal weight people odds of 1% for something to go wrong and for overweight 2%. The incisions he makes have to be larger for a big person. Hopefully I will get the steroid shot next week. The doctor says I should know within 72 hours if it reduces the swelling and the pain. He didn’t say so, but my wife says (she is a nurse), the shot is just a temporary relief measure.
Surgery will be coming, but before that he will send me to a cardiac doctor to make sure my heart is healthy. He also said more surgeries would be coming also as I get older; I would still have 2 bad disks left.
He said to stop going for Therapy, it would be a waste of time. The damage is done and only surgery will help at this point. The disks are about as damaged as they can get, so I am beyond Therapy.
I will have to stay in vicodin happy land for a while yet.
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You probably mean the L4 and L5 lumbar area. There are three regions of the spine: Cervic, Thorasic and Lumbar. Not to dampen your spirits but I had a friend die who was over weight and had liver problems. They could not do surgery until he lost weight. He died just after a group of friends built a ramp onto his trailer.
Hope you get better.
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I don’t know where I pulled up R4 and R5. You are right L4 & L5
He must have been extremely overweight to be refused surgery. But I am sure they would have done surgery if they thought it was life threatening.
The doctor made it clear that it is not a safe thing to do to operate on overweight people, but in this case he has to.
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