Coworker kept feeding me horror stories about back surgery which I didn't listen too much and mine has been a fantastic success. Well, now both of them.
Morphine didn't really help with the diverticulitis pain all that much. Dilaudid kick that stuff in the face though. After my surgeries, I think I took the good stuff for a day or two. Still got some on hand.
Maybe that is what is wrong with my back now. I had a laminectomy about 15 years ago it worked great, but the pain has been coming back for about a year now.
Yep, only good for so long. As disc material, which keeps the actual vertebrae apart, progressively fails the nerve bundle gets increasingly compressed. I did three steroid injections over like six years. Then the laminectomy was good for another four.
The laminectomy basically hogs out the intervertebral gap so they are not compressing the nerve bundle. The only real fix is to do the fusion, which jacks up the vertebrae to a good distance, the crappy discs scooped out, and a mix of ground up bone and a matrix holding it gets inserted. Thats the fusion part. That ground up living bone grows between the vertebrae, fusing them together.
I had one in my L5-S1 lumbar in 2018, and in 2022 had my C4-C7 done. Both by Dr Fred Mo up in Georgetown. The man is fantastic.
