Its not a surprise to anyone that I have had back issues for 5 years now. In 2007, I had an MRI done and they told me that I had the arthritis of a 50 year old in my back. Since then, I starting going to a chiropractor that really helped the pain go away. Sometimes it would be 3 months and sometimes days. In February of 2011, I noticed pain traveling down the lower portion of my back, through my hip, and into my ankle. It would come and go without causing me to miss a beat. In May, I met with my doctor and he diagnosed it as sciatica. He gave me a prescription and sent me on my merry way.
This week, I met with my doctor on Tuesday and he no longer believes it is sciatica since it is still causing issues months later. It was really slowing me down because I felt like I could not put any weight on it and my back pain was getting worse. He ordered me to get an MRI on Thursday, gave me a prescription for Lortab, and said would contact me with the results. I had also told my chiropractor as well because he was concerned that my visits were more frequent and did not seem to help.
Friday morning, I went to the chiropractor. As he proceeded to work on my back, he asked if I had my MRI and of course I told him yes. He sent the assistant for the paperwork; he read it and ordered the assistant to pull it up on the computer. Here I am lying face down and he is clicking through the file, when out of the blue, I hear him say "Oh shit." The problem with that is he doesn't cuss. I realized technology is just amazing as he asked me to look at the file. It basically looks like a 3-D image of my spine and you can even do a birdseye view. Here is what he showed me:
1/ L1 was moved forward and up, pushing on the disk between L1 and L2.
2/ I had a bulging disk between L4 and L5, so bad that it had taken up 3/4 of the nerve cavity and pushing all the nerves into that section.
3/ All the disks above L5 were full of fluid.
He looked at me and said 9 out of 10 people with this condition have to have surgery and he immediately ordered his assitant to set up an appointment. I also had my medical records and MRI from 2007 sent to him as he had requested.
This Saturday night, the pain was so intense that it woke me up. I have been sleeping on the floor as the chiropractor had suggested. I could not get up off the floor and it nearly took me 15 minutes. It was so bad that I woke Jessica up in the other end of the house. Evenetually, it let up enough to where I could go to sleep.
Sunday morning, the pain was back and I told Jessica we needed to go to the ER. We arrived around 10:30 and the lady at the desk said "You seem to be in extreme pain, I will get you in right away." Of course, they asked me a ton of questions in the triage and I mentioned I just had an MRI. They send me back to a room. 15 minutes later, a nurse walks in and says "I reviewed your MRI and there is no way Lortab is going to prevent that much pain." She also went on to say that I will be having surgery as well. She had the assistant give me a shot and prescribed me with Percoset and Valium. As we got into the vehicle at 11:30 (can you believe it only took us one hour in the ER), I immediately noticed the pain going away. Although I feel some, it is not even a 1/10 of what it was and it felt good to walk.
Hopefully, I will find out tomorrow when I will get to see the back surgeon and when I will have the surgery. The nurse said in the ER I would be in the hospital for a couple of days (which sucks), but I would be back up and going within a week or two. However, it would be months before I reach a full recovery point.
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