Is there hope for degenerative disk disease?

BigTex said:

Amen. I fight going to the gym because of pain. But once I get there I am OK because the pain seems to just go away. I live off Celebrex, Ibuprofen and Tylenol. Sleep is the hard part. Not only does my back hurt but both shoulders hurt worse. I was told that I would now when it is time to get surgery.....when I could no longer tolerate the pain.

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I to am ok once I get in the gym. I can get though any work out. It’s the evening or night that is the worst.l once I stiffen up a bit. I too live off Tylenol, ibuprofen, and diclofenac. I’ve tried cbd for it’s touted pain relief but it intensifies the pain for me. Like every nerve in my body is 3x as sensitive. Same for thc.

Weasel said:

I to am ok once I get in the gym. I can get though any work out. It’s the evening or night that is the worst.l once I stiffen up a bit. I too live off Tylenol, ibuprofen, and diclofenac. I’ve tried cbd for it’s touted pain relief but it intensifies the pain for me. Like every nerve in my body is 3x as sensitive. Same for thc.

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CBD....about 3 years ago I tried that, expensive and worthless. I did purchase a medication called Ketorolac, which is a very strong NSAID seems to help some but it has a black box warning not to take more than 5 days in a row. So I take it once a week.

testiculus said:

It just depends on what's driving the pain. Some things can only be resolved by surgery. Unfortunately, surgeons generally will advise that surgery is the only thing that will work in cases where that is not true. So always take what a surgeon says with a large grain of salt. If you decide to go with surgery, the best way to figure out which surgeon to choose is to talk to PTs in the area. They see which docs have good outcomes and which ones don't.

In Houston, I've heard the following are good for spine issues. No personal experience with either:

Matthew W. Wasserman | UT Physicians | Orthopedic Surgery Doctor in Houston, Texas

Dr. Matthew Wasserman, UT Physicians orthopedics, cares for adult patients in the Greater Houston area.

www.utphysicians.com

Dr. Paul Boone

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I saw Wasserman back in 2016, right after my family doctor found the DDD. I took Wasserman the x-rays and he confirmed it. He told me just keep keep the muscles strong and when the pain got hard to deal with, come back and see him. He would then refer me to a pain management clinic. He did add the surgery was not so easy to recover from. Since then they do minimum invasive surgery.

Here is the guy I am going to talk to, Dr. G. Alexander West:

Although I had already 2 prior surgeries including a 3-level fusion (L4-L5-S1) performed in 2017 due to emergency Cauda Equina Compression in my record, I needed to have a 3rd one done due to some new neurological symptoms, including pain (lumbar, sciatica et.al.).

With that, I did some research, and hit the road to Duke Hospital last Summer (July 2023) and despite being a “complicated case”, I had an endoscopic microdiscectomy procedure for root nerve decompression performed on my lumbar by Dr. Abd-El-Barr, MD, PhD.

Dr. Abd-El-Barr is not only a great person to talk to, but also is an outstanding Neurosurgeon at Duke Hospital and Professor at Duke University.

My recovery was a breeze with me forgetting the requested “post-surgery limitations” all the time since I was pain-free the very next day. I would not hesitate to get at least a phone consultation with him (his PA is also great, by the way!)

Dr. Abd-El-Barr might even operate on you while awake

In either case, give them a call/get an appointment scheduled with him and feel free to message me should you have any further questions.

Good luck! Hope you feel better soon, my friend!

Yea, the doctor I mentioned does some of his stuff while you are awake. YIKES!

Good luck to you too!