Talk About Pain: Back Pain

Talk about Pain

Where people can get together and share information to help with pain.

Back Pain:

This is something I can definitely relate too. I have been living with it for over 20 years. I believe I first hurt my back by lifting weights incorrectly. I have 3 herniated or bulging disks. I was told by my surgeon that the bottom 2 disks are basically disintegrating and collapsing down on each other.

Anytime there is more than one disk involved the chances of surgery working diminish. So with three bad disks it would have to get really bad before surgery would be done. I don’t have pain radiating down my butt and leg which is not the norm. That makes surgery even less likely to work. So enough about me, here is some information I have found I the web or my doctors have told me.

BackVertibre Lumbar MRI

Some causes of Back Pain:

: backphoto

Herniated, ruptured or bulging disks
Muscle spasms or tense muscles
Scoliosis
Arthritis
Spinal stenosis
Kidney stones
Infections
Pregnancy
Trauma

Ways to Diagnose:

X rays, MRI’s, CT scans and EMG’s are a few diagnostic procedures. I personally have had all of these. I believe I have had around 15 MRI’s. I actually fall asleep during them now which is very strange since I don’t hardly sleep in my bed!

Treatments:

Conservative treatments:

Heat therapy
Exercising, try to strengthen the area or the muscles related to the area
Physical therapy, a good physical therapist is so important with any injury. They can show you the correct exercises to do as well as stretches that will hopefully make you more flexible
Massage therapy, this will loosen up the muscles in the area and hopefully help the pain, and it feels great too!
Chiropractic’s, again find a good one, manipulation can really help. Personally it worked for me some of the time until my disks just got to bad.
Acupuncture, I have not tried this but know many people who swear by it. I wish insurance covered it because I would love to give it a shot.

backexercises

Other treatments:

Injections, such as epidural steroid injections and facet joint injections
Medications, anti inflammatories, muscle relaxers and finally pain killers.

Surgeries:. My wife had the less invasive surgery called a Laminectomy.

Laminectomy: Is a surgical procedure for treating spinal stenosis by relieving pressure on the spinal cord. The lamina of the vertebra is removed or trimmed to widen the spinal canal and create more space for the spinal nerves.
This can be an outpatient procedure or they could keep you over night. Your recovery time is much shorter and success rate is higher than fusion.
Diskectomy. This involves removal of the herniated portion of a disk to relieve pressure on a nerve. It's done as an open surgery, and typically involves full or partial removal of the back portion of a vertebra (lamina) to access the ruptured disk.
Spine fusion: This is a surgery that is done to link together two or more vertebrae. When there is a problem with the vertebrae (often a problem with the disc space), your doctor may recommend a spine fusion to eliminate the motion that occurs within that portion of the spine. By linking together the vertebrae, your doctor is trying to eliminate the source of your back problem.

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