DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... discectomy

Hey guys looking like I am going to have to get discectomy done on my back. I have a herniated disc that I had mentioned when I posted about playing in an alumni football game. Its gotten to the point with the pain in my leg that epidurals are not helping anymore. I have been off work 3 wks now and meet witht the surgeon again friday to look at new mri and schedule surgery.

I was just wondering if anyone has had the surgery and if they can tell me anything to look out for. I have researched it online and all I find are horror stories for a surgery that my surgeon said has an 85% success rate.

I was dead set against surgery since I'm only 25 but the last 3 wks have been horrible. Most of the time I need a walker to get around due to pain and loss of leg strength in my right leg. The surgeon said will help with the leg pain and stop me from losing anymore leg strength and that I might regain some but most of the time you dont ever get it all the way back.

I also know that I need to quit yo-yoing my weight and try to keep it off. Last year at this time i was down to 255 from 315 and then within the past year I have ballooned back up to 290.

I had Guillain-Barré syndrome about 2 years ago, during the attack I lost about 90% strength in body and was paralyzed. After I was released from the hospital I read the GBS message boards and I read horror story after horror story of the countless hours of pain, or the fact that I would never walk again ect...

None of those things happened to me, after a few months of physical therapy I healed, regained my strength and honestly you would never know I was sick. Don't sweat the horror stories, people are always going to complain more then they are going give you the success stories. If you are religious person just pray and everything should go right.

I had a discectomy done on L3, and it was pretty painless.

I had mine done with an arthroscope, and it was done in a matter of minutes once I went into the surgery suite. I was awake during the surgery, and the most disturbing aspect was the weird pressure inside my back/chest, while my back itself was numb.

Unfortunately, mine did nothing to help my condition. It did significantly lighten my wallet though. I did 2 rounds of epidurals that did not really help my back, but I did still have the L3 disc pressing somewhat on the nerve. The doctor cut out part of the nucleus of the disc in order to shrink that disc back into place, and that was that. The follow up MRI showed that the disc had then receded back to where it belongs. Unfortunately, L3 must not be the major problem in my back. I do have a congenital defect in my lower back ..... so there is something in there causing the problems I have had.

Back to the surgery, I have not had any side effects that I can think of.