Went to see my cervical spine doctor today. Actually he's not MY doctor, but he's "A" doctor to whom I was referred by my orthopedic guy. This doctor, for being a spine surgeon, was much less impressive than my orthopedic guy. Anyway, after waiting for almost an hour, I was finally called in to see the assistant or whatever their right hand person is called. She seemed very dour, not the usual up beat folks I usually see. She didn't seem very positive about anything related to me and my disc, for instance saying it's not bulging, it's herniated. Seems worse and it is.
Think of a hard boiled egg. If you take the shell off and squeeze the egg a bit, that's a bulging disc. If you squeeze it too much and a little yolk comes out, that's a herniated disc. Sounds much worse to me. Anyway, the treatment is either continue doing what I'm doing as long as there isn't a lot of pain and hope the body absorbs some of the fluid around the disc and the herniation dries up and retreats. Or have surgery.
Surgery sounds bad, but it's a 90 minute, outpatient procedure. Not sure what the recovery is like though. It was somewhat unsettling that the resident went to "surgery" pretty quickly. For now though I'm just going to keep going to physical therapy and strengthen the necessary muscles and such. If however, the pain returns or my triceps doesn't gain strength, then surgery may be needed to prevent anything from becoming permanent.
That's where the neck stands. Is it worse? Well, it was feeling better before my visit!!
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3 comments:
goodness, I hope it can be improved with therapy. I hate surgery, only because it feels like it rarely solves the issue permanently and often has side effects you can't anticipate.
None of this sounds particularly pleasant. And you know my feelings about the medical profession in general -LL excepted !!!
None of this sounds good! Who knew it was going to be something so serious!
I've had a tingling feeling in my left arm and hand for several weeks. The feeling seems to stem from my left shoulder blade. I just keep thinking I'll mention it to the chiropractor when I see him next Wednesday. But now I'm wondering if I shouldn't be so quick to assume it's nothing.
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