Tomorrow morning i am having microdiscectomy on my L3-4. The doctor says that I should have a complete recovery, and has done this many, many times. IO have read on these boards mostly horror stories, but I am still confident that things will go well. I amhaving the surgery at a surgical suite and will be home the same day. How vigilant must I be regarding reaching down, sitting etc? I will continue to post my progress.
Welcome to the board. Sometimes patients get an unrealistic sense of the surgery due to the fact that it doesn't involve a hospital stay, and many spine surgeons are quick to pass it off as "minimal." This gives the patient a false sense of the fact that it is still the spine that is being accessed and parts are being removed from it. It is major surgery.
I don't have statistics to quote you, but the biggest "danger" of reherniation is in the first six weeks after surgery. It is not a common occurence, but it does happen, and, in many cases, it doesn't take much for the reherniation to happen.
To avoid the problems associated with reherniation, it behooves the patient to be as careful as possible in the weeks following surgery. Avoid activities that involve bending or twisting at the waist, pushing, pulling, reaching up overhead or to the side and lifting anything beyond the weight limit given by the surgeon. Also, it is important to avoid sitting for longer than 15-20 minutes at one time. Sitting puts 30% more stress on the discs than standing or lying down.
Think of this period of recuperation as a time to retrain yourself. Become aware of using good body mechanics, having good posture and maintaining proper structural alignment.
Plan on "babying" yourself and your back for a couple weeks...and remember that it will take the disc a good six months to toughen up after surgery.
Tomorrow morning i am having microdiscectomy on my L3-4. The doctor says that I should have a complete recovery, and has done this many, many times. IO have read on these boards mostly horror stories, but I am still confident that things will go well. I amhaving the surgery at a surgical suite and will be home the same day. How vigilant must I be regarding reaching down, sitting etc? I will continue to post my progress.
Alan
Well it's the first day after surgery and as you can tell i am able to type. Thank God for IPads. The surgery went very well says the doctor. The first thing I noticed was that when I stood up all the pain was gone from my leg. That felt miraculous since I have not felt the lack of pain for months.
I do have a large amount of pain from the incision, however, and find it very difficult to find comfort. Hopefully this will not last too long because I refuse to take pain mess for more than a few days. The last time i had back surgery was much more intensive, having had a calcified disc removed, from the front after collapsing my lungs etc. that hospital stay was almost two weeks. yesterday my procedure was done as an out patient. I do believe I used a very talented doctor who is young, and yet experienced. if anyone is interested and in the NY area I would be glad to recommend. So far so good.
