scitaca

mosie21

Hi, I am 22 years old.I started having pain down my leg around 2 years ago, in the beginning it was bearable. During the second year I was dancing around 5 hours a day ( I do musical theater in college) and their was a period of around 4 months where I couldn't sleep at night with pain, where I felt the pain constantly but I was never totally bed ridden.

I saw a nero surgeon who told me I would need to have surgery a discectomy, because my disc had slipped and was lying on my sciatic nerve. I started going to physio, the surgeon suggested it but said it probably wouldn't do much good. The physo was giving me Pilates exercises but to do but to be honest I didn't really do them as I never has the time and didn't think they were much good.
I also started going to this lady in London she had a bionic hand that basically straightened by spine, the first two times I barely noticed any difference but after the 4th time I felt like a new person.

I have been called for my surgery for THIS THURSDAY! At the moment its just painful when I bend, and stretch and im wondering if I should just leave well enough alone, but then on the other hand do I want to put up with this pain for the rest of my life? Is it causing damage to the nerve?
The surgeons said because I have had it for so long it is unlikely to get any better.

I am gone out of my mind with stress because other people are saying once you start messing with the back their is no turning back! They are saying I will prob need a fusion when I am older and stuff like this!

I would really really appreciate any help at all, I have also been reading studies done where 50% of people had surgery and the other 50% were treated by conservative means and after two years the results were the same.

* Journal American Medical Association 2006 Nov 22;296(20):2441-50 Weinstien et al
This large study of 501 patients found little difference long term between those that had surgery and those that did not. Patients in both the surgery and the nonoperative treatment groups improved substantially over a 2-year period.

* In nine Dutch hospitals 283 patients were entered into the trial . 141 underwent early surgery , that is within 6-12 weeks of symptom duration. 142 were assigned to conservative treatment for 6 months. 62 (44%) of these eventually came to surgery.

Early surgery achieved more rapid relief of sciatica than conservative care, but outcomes were similar by one year and these did not change during the second year.

It makes me wondering if I should hold off the surgery and see?
please leave comments as I don't have much time to make a decision

Thanks

Vorsprung

Firstly, fair play for looking up articles and informing yourself of the ins and outs of your condition.

Unfortunately, while we can discuss the studies you've cited and others, we can't give you advice on which treatment to opt for.

If you want to seek out other people's experiences of the condition, you might be better posting in the Long Term Illness forum where there are plenty of threads - search results here.

All the best with whatever decision you make. I'll leave this open for now to discuss treatment of sciatica in general terms.

grapefruit_1

You should make a pro and con list based on what you feel the benefits of each option will be. I tend to do this for a lot of decisions in my life! Sometimes its easier to see the clear winner when its down on paper.