So I went to see the back specialist finally. Four weeks after I started having leg pain and two weeks after going to the general practitioner at the Student Health Center. I had really tweaked something the morning I went to the Student Health Center, guess maybe I should have stopped playing raquetball a little earlier. Dr. Nielson at the SHC had me get an MRI the next day, and after the report came back of two herniated discs, he made arrangements for me to see the back specialists. I waited two weeks and finally got in to see the nurse practitioner (the main doctors are booked for new patients until August!). He looked at my information, asked a couple of questions, pulled my MRI films out and said, "Well, you have a really bad herniated disc and really really bad herniated disc." Then he started explaining things to me.
Here is a picture of my spine looking down on a slice of it as if you were looking down a pipe. The little group of dots that the red arrow is pointing to are the nerves running down the spine. The light gray triangular oval they are in is what is called the thecal sac. The large dark gray circle above that is a spine bone and the discs are the same shape normally. This first picture shows the shape of all these things as they should be.
This second image shows the really bad herniated disc. The dark circle is pushing out on the thecal sac (red circle) and the nerves (red arrow) get pinched.
The third image is of the really really bad herniated disc. Between the two of these guys my nerves are pinched enough to cause my leg to hurt and my foot to be numb. He told me that I should schedule surgery, the earliest day being April 14th. He gave me a website to get more info from and said to go home and think about it. He told me that as bad as they are they probably won't go away on their own. Over the past two weeks I am feeling like the symptoms are going away more and more each day. The information he pointed me to said it takes 4 to 6 weeks for a herniated disc to be "resorbed", as it is called. I talked to him today on the phone again and he said if I am feeling better we will wait six weeks and talk again. If my choice is between potential permanent nerve damage and surgery, I will take surgery, but if I can get better and they will go away on their own, that is what I opt for. The surgery doesn't fix things so that they won't herniate again, in fact it increases the probability, it just treats the symptoms and relieves the pressure on the nerves. So if my symptoms are going away, do I still get surgery? This is definitely part of my prayers right now.
Here is a picture of my spine looking down on a slice of it as if you were looking down a pipe. The little group of dots that the red arrow is pointing to are the nerves running down the spine. The light gray triangular oval they are in is what is called the thecal sac. The large dark gray circle above that is a spine bone and the discs are the same shape normally. This first picture shows the shape of all these things as they should be.
This second image shows the really bad herniated disc. The dark circle is pushing out on the thecal sac (red circle) and the nerves (red arrow) get pinched.
The third image is of the really really bad herniated disc. Between the two of these guys my nerves are pinched enough to cause my leg to hurt and my foot to be numb. He told me that I should schedule surgery, the earliest day being April 14th. He gave me a website to get more info from and said to go home and think about it. He told me that as bad as they are they probably won't go away on their own. Over the past two weeks I am feeling like the symptoms are going away more and more each day. The information he pointed me to said it takes 4 to 6 weeks for a herniated disc to be "resorbed", as it is called. I talked to him today on the phone again and he said if I am feeling better we will wait six weeks and talk again. If my choice is between potential permanent nerve damage and surgery, I will take surgery, but if I can get better and they will go away on their own, that is what I opt for. The surgery doesn't fix things so that they won't herniate again, in fact it increases the probability, it just treats the symptoms and relieves the pressure on the nerves. So if my symptoms are going away, do I still get surgery? This is definitely part of my prayers right now.
