MRI was today i'm fcked !

[BloodyMule]

All the advise I can give is GET the surgery done!!
Don't come back into action to early, and make sure you go through rehab 100%. I am 24 and had knee surgery when I was 18. Never went to more than 2 rehab's and now can't even fully squat down on that knee, even without weights.. it sucks.. wrecks you life basically...
Get it fixed, be a slacker for a while, and come back strong..
Good luck..
Mule

 

[1bigpitbull]

Thanks to all I very much appreciate everybodys feedback and encouragement.

 

[Trevdog]

Bro I know something about this.

You want to think long and hard before you go under the knife. I suspect that they may fuse some of your vertebra together. Even if they don't do that, do some research on back surgery. Very often people end up with worse pain and less mobility than before the surgery.

I have what is called spondylolisthesis-spondylosis. It means a degeneration and forward slippage at L4. I was probably born with it to some degree, but never had any real problems until I got hit by a car while riding a mountain bike.

I've had all kinds of treatment. Honestly I believe the best healer is the slow passage of time. I mean slow in terms of months, years. I didn't squat for several years, thought I never would, but now I'm doing it with a smith machine.

I got some relief from chiro and from physical therapy. I don't know if those are indicated in your case.

I would recommend trying the epidural injections, especially since this involves swelling of your disk. They will inject catabolic steriods into the epidural gap. It won't hurt even though the needle is fat and long, since they will numb up the area with a local anesthetic. Don't worry, I doubt that this will make you shrink all over. The idea is to reduce the swelling which is causing the problem.

I had this done. There is a small risk. They use a
"loss of resistance" technique. Meaning after they get through the cartlige the needle moves more easily since it is in the epidural gap. About 1 in 100 times they don't feel a loss of resistance. This happened in my case and the needle went too far and punctured the membrane that keeps the spinal fluid where it belongs, bathing your spinal cord. When this happens you can have bad headaches for weeks. They finally fixed it by drawing blood out of my arm and injecting it into the gap. The idea is that the platelets from the blood get into the hole and heal it up.

Again, only consider surgery as a last resort and realize that you could emerge from it in worse shape than when you went in.

 

[1bigpitbull]

Thanks Trevdog .My brother runs the E.R at Duke Univ.And my dads A doctor also so were considering everything I'm not worried about surgery Im just pissed cause i'm afraid of how long the recovery time is going to be.The US open for judo is in october so I don't have time to sit around hoping that rest will help it .I rather get the surgery rehab my ass off and get back on track as soon as possible.But of course I'll do what ever the doctor says.I'm just bummed out.

 

[Lift Or Die]

Hey man I feel for you. A few years ago I herianted a disc pretty bad and the pain was unbearable at times whether I was standing, sitting or lying down. I did it using piss poor form on heavy bent rows. The doc I saw said that surgery wouldn't gaurantee that it would heal any better and he suggested it to let it heal by itself which I did. I was out of the gym for 6 months and my back took almost 10 months to completely heal. Nowdays it feels great and I'm deadlifting as heavy as ever. Good luck to you and hope you heal faster than I did.

 

[clune]

Trevdog is correct on thinking hard about the surgery. Spine and neuro is the field that I work in every day. I see people come and go with these back surgeries and most of them dont feel any better than they started. I highly suggest the shots. They really are not that painful when compared to a back surgery. Even a non instrumented surgery will put you out of commision for a while. I also remember somebody saying that 80% of the population probably have herniation. He is pretty damn close to the actual amount. Its not the disc herniation that causes the pain, its the liquid out of the nucleus pulposus herniating into the spinal canal and irritating a nerve. The local shots will temporilily get rid of the irritation and smart physical therapy can help the herniation problem. Fusion or decompression is not the answer all the time. Its just the last resort. Please dont be hasty and talk to more than one spine guys(preferably a nerosurgeon because they are usually a lot more conservative than the orthopedic spine guys). If you have any questions for me, please feel free to email me.
Good luck

 

[ripped1979]

hey pitbull i take judo too... what degree are u? what weight and wher do u work out>?

 

[tucker]

I work in anesthesia,and we usually do 2-3 steroid epidurals for herniated disc per day.We use Depo-Medrol in the injection.It usually takes 3 injections to obtain the full benefit.I say about 60% of the people are "helped" considerabely.I can promise you that it is much safer than general anesthesia that you will likely undergo for disc surgery.Some people suggested a chiropractor earlier in the post,I don't have much experience with them.Animal B is a chiropractor,maybe he can give you some advice.Hope this helps,good luck.

 

[entropy01]

I would go the natural way first, which may be hard due to all of the Docs in the family. But, why not try something conservative before pumping your body full of drugs or getting vertebral fusion. The other segments in your spine will be more likely to degenerate if you do this and you will be fucked later.

See a chiropractor that specializes in Flexion/distraction technique developed by Dr. Cox. I have done this on numerous amounts of patients with great success. I have never had anyone need surgery after performing this.
BTW you may think it happened when you were fishing but it actually did happen over time with more stressful events (training, judo) that was just the straw that broke the camels back

 

[ultragainz]

get well bro