I was hurt in a military vehicle accident two years ago and I have suffered from complete severe chronic back pain every since that goes down into my legs and up into my neck. I have been to the doctor 69 times. The 68 times before I was only diagnosed with a head scratching case of degenerative disc disease. Little did I know that for the whole two years the only area that my doctors had covered with an MRI was my lurabar region. Finally a military doctor ordered the complete MRI and on the 69th visit it was found that I have three bulging discs in my cervical spine with bone spurs and two bulging discs in my thoracic with a couple of pinched nerves. There never was anything other than degenerative disc disease in the lurabar region. I am 26 years old. What do I have to look forward to. The good. The bad. I need to hear it. I have tried to research this on the net but all I get are lawyers or doctors trying to get you to try their new experimental fix all for back pain. I would appreciate anyone with honest real world pre and post op experience.
Come on down to the Spinal Cord Problems board and met the "cervies". I'm fused from C3 to T1 and it's not that bad. There's a lot that can be done and the first thing you need is to find out if you have cord compression or just nerve compression. If you have cord compression, you may need it relieved or paralysis can ensue. If it's nerve compression(more likely with all your pain)a discectomy with fusion(ACDF) may be the answer and you can read posts from people who are home the same day from surgery and how they are doing. Many thoracic people too.
You don't need to suffer. You've already suffered from enough medical incompetence.
DDD other wise known as Degenerative Disc Disease was a shocker to me too! Never heard of it although I knew my mother had a bad back but I thought that was due to an injury she suffered and later found out it was hereditary and now my sister found out three years ago that she too has it! I found out when I was 43 and found that I also had arthritis there too but I did a lot and I mean a lot of reading on the newest procedures of the time I was going to face surgery and one of the offers presented was to replace the discs and when I read and just so happen to hear a health segment on the news about disc replacement they said that almost always the patients bodies treat the new disc as a foreign body (which it is) and begins to reject it and every one I've spoken to since have said the same thing. The internet is a wonderful thing so if you see something that you don't understand or want to learn more about that you've read on these posts you should research them and as was mentioned before browse the posts and see what you can learn. Will be looking out for you in the future.
