Let's Hear About Your Back Surgery...

There has to be a bunch of guys here who have gone thru back problems and subsequent surgery.

My back has been somewhat of a problem since i had a fall in 2001… right after the deal i got on prednesone and, of course, it worked fine. Fast forward about eight years and i found myself on another prednesone regimen every summer just so I could function. I had two prescriptions this summer/fall with the second one doing nothing.

I made an appt. for an MRI. The results show arthritis (I knew about), spinal stenosis and a couple discs that are out of place. I'm waiting for my Doc to give me a recommendation for a surgeon but i have an idea he will refer me to one of our local guys… I'm not so sure i really trust any of them. Lots of bad stories.

Anybody have that minimally invasive surgery done?

I need to get this done before Christmas or after February (my son's wedding is in Feb)...

 

I went to this place and was very happy. http://www.laserspineinstitute.com/ Back injury in 1999 that I ignored.. Dealt with the pain til 2007.. Found out I had a ruptured L5-S1 and herniated L4-L5... Did the free MRI review. Went to Tampa.. 45 mins on the operating table watching the surgery on TV.. 45 mins in recovery and then walked out the door.. Couple of weeks of rehab and then back in the fight.. Ran for the first time a month after surgery and did 5 miles 6 weeks after surgery.. Oh yeah and I dropped a tree for a friend with the 021 a week after getting cut..... Very happy with their process and the outcome.. Let me know if you want more specifics...

 

I was fortunate enough to get out with a steroid shot after an L5-S1 herniation.
With two family members that have had back surgeries (neither turned out very well) I was very leery of a knife anywhere near my back.

 

My FIL had a couple of botched operations.. On a cocktail of drugs now and in and out of a wheel chair.. That was 25 years ago but any procedure is still not without risk... As they say, only go under the knife as a last resort... That's the situation I was in with mine in 2007..

 

I had success with spine institute here.

Sciatica ,
walked in to surgery like a chimp & a few hours later walked out up-right , like a human.

I still have back pain, but there's a lot to be said for walking up-right .

 

Drs have told me keep taking pain meds, if we cut you might be in a wheel chair.

I have 2 crushed vertebrae and 3 bad discs from a fall in 2010. Been in pain meds since.

 

Well I took a little unplanned trip to the ER last night.

My family doc prescribed indomethacin (anti-inflamatory) and a 'muscle relaxer' for me two weeks ago. I got the generic form of Valium as the muscle fixer… had no idea what it was.

Last night about 7:30 I took one of each pill on an empty stomach… label sez 'take with food'. Twenty minutes later the room is spinning and I have a case of vertigo that feels like I drank a case of Yukon Jack. I ate a little but it didn't seem to help so after some prodding from the wife, and my better judgement kicked in, we jumped into the Buick took a ride to the ER. Took a baby aspirin just in case...

The wife wanted to call the ambulance… not in this town… ever. They send two ambulances and charge $1900.00 for a 1/2 mile ride to the hospital. The last time we used them (10 years ago), the wife was sick with food poisoning, I got the bill (no insurance) and told them to pound sand. I have a Medicare Advantage plan now but they only pay for ONE ambulance… what a racket.

Anywho I got the full treatment… blood work, EKG, CT scan of my noggin (empty). Nothing really bad except my BP was pretty goofy… 149/78. Never saw that before… usually I'm a 130/80 guy. The Doc had no explanation for what happened.

I told the nurses that the last time I had two cute girls in nurses uniforms taking care of me it cost $250.00 an hour and they didn't take Medicare… my wife didn't think that was funny.

Strange thing is I've been on this medication for two weeks… three times per day. I've been tired but can't sleep much at night. So I get to bed at 7AM… sleep until noon. Go out in the shop for an hour or two, take a nap. Eat dinner… go out in the shop again till I get tired. Come back in the house and toss and turn until daybreak. Repeat….

So now I'm done with that frickin' Valium. I'll take a drive to the big city and sell it to get pellet money. The indomethacin is OK… used it before.

My doc is going to give me a referral to a local neurosurgeon just to see what he sez. I'm also going to talk to the folks at the Laser Spine Institute. There's also a hospital in Green Bay that does robotic spine surgery, too. Gotta find someone I'm comfortable with since this deal is too important to have Burger King do the work.

Unless one of you guys has a really fine tooth chain on that Stihl saw?

 

Your sense of humor ought to be able to help some. Funny stuff... Hope you find relief soon.

 

In 1984 I had a 750 lb crate come down on me, which basically paralyzed me from the waste down if I tried to twist or bend. I had surgery L4-L5 , fractured vertebrae , stenosis, herniated disc, etc. I was back to work in nine months and have to watch how I bend, but I can do most everything that I did before. I was told to take pain killers and anti-inflammatorys, but decided not to because I didn't want to mask anything serious going on. If you can put up with the pain things will get better slowly and you won't be making things worse by covering up a problem and making it worse.

 

Thanks for all the comments…

I used to laugh at people who said they had a bad back… yuk it up. No more.

During my early days of trucking virtually every load I hauled was a 'floor load'… hauled a lot of boxed meat, produce, cheese and other food stuffs. You'd get to the shipper and they drive a pallet into the trailer and I'd have to pull off every box and stack it on the floor. Everything from 130# sacks of coffee beans in Brooklyn to 100# boxes of inedible beef for pet food in Liberal, KS to 3000 small boxes of cheese in Green bay, WI. When you got to the receiver you picked it off the floor and put it back on a pallet… really dumb.

I thought I was bulletproof...

Everything I hauled I loaded my self of hired 'lumpers' to help me… Safe lifting? Yeah right… never heard the term. I had two weeks of Canton, OH to Cincinnati… two loads per day… 45,000 lbs. per load of boxed beef going to Kroger Co. All on the floor. I had 20 years of that before I got smart and changed jobs to get out of that food hauling biz.

Today most loads are palletized but back then you were like a mule hauling as much as your back could handle.

The goofy thing is this back deal started with a simple trip and fall at a car dealer in Illinois. Then, two years later, I was on top of my flatbed tarping a load when the wind kicked up and tossed me onto the deck of my trailer 6' below. A year later I missed a step getting out of my cab and I hit the ground with a bang. After that third deal I knew I was screwed.

So I'll see what can be done with this… I'm glad that back repairs have come a long way. I sure wouldn't have wanted to go under the knife 30 years ago...

 

I know everyone is different, but after hearing stuckinthemuck's story... I'll look at that Laser Spine Institute if I get to that point. Get's the job done quickly with fast recoveries.

 

Krooser you're just UNLUCKY ! OOPS , Glass Houses !

 

Good to see you back here Dennis. Haven't heard from you in a while...

 

My wife lived for over 50 years thinking she had polio… studies @ UW-Madison until she was 18… her parents always said they wish they could have had her immunized, stuff like that. Then she met a doctor who took one look at her and told her she didn't have polio… she had a stroke!

That doctor got her medical records and there was zero mention of polio but lots about post-stroke care. Not sure if her folks were mis-informed, had their own opinion… whatever.

 

You'd have gotten a kick out of this, (might have been a little closer than 300 yards from the home)... a hunter buddy lives on the edge of a big field and had deer coming across 1/2 way out (maybe 100 yards). Nice buck wanders out just before dark, he sees him but he's in the livingroom... wife's in the kitchen making dinner... he opens one of his windows very slowly... steps back into the livingroom and... BOOM...curtains blowing out of the window... wife drops whatever she was holding and runs into the room. He's already out the door... he got the buck... and his wife is screaming at him all the way out in the field... Life in Maine...

 

I believe I heard a bit about that… pretty amazing.

I made an appointment today to see a surgeon about my back. I'll see one or two more before I pick one.

I did some investigating about the Laser Spine Institute. The closest one is in Chicago which isn't the worst. But I understand it's a three day process with two days of appts. before you have the surgery. Can't do that. Plus, if you just do a search you find many, many disgruntled patients and lawsuits, or threats of lawsuits, after unsuccessful procedures.

My insurance carrier will pay 'reasonable' charges for all medical procedures. We found this to be true when we got a bill for her tests done at UW-Madison Health Center. She had a world class doc due $18K worth of tests… of course he didn't find the problem but he WAS expensive! We have to pay about $2,500.00 of that bill.

The Laser Spine outfit won't give me a price over the phone but I have read there deals start at $30K and can go up to $80K or more. My carrier pays an average of $15,000 in our area for a simple (easy for them to say) fusion procedure to $25,000 for more complex surgeries. The first Doc I'm seeing gave me a $14,000 estimate as their average cost for doctors fees, two days of hospitalizations, a quart of Moonshine for an anesthetic and misc. charges. I might have to up that Moonshine allowance.

Now if I could just trust Dr. Moe, Dr. Larry and Dr. Curly….

 

I wish that was the case for me!