Tess - Herniated disc

[Guest guest]

Hi Tess,

I wanted to put in my 2 cents worth regarding what to do about your foot-drop.

I had never heard that there was a window of opportunity to surgiclly manage a

herniated disc, but I will be workingwith a spine surgeon tomorrow and will see

if I can ask him about it. I know that many of us walking around have herneated

discs but don't have symptoms. It is not until we start getting symptoms that

they even consider operating on it, but I will do my best to ask the doc - if

not him, then other co-workers with more experience than I have.

I also wanted to know if you have ever had physical therapy for this problem.

The right physical therapist will work to help " reduce " (bring it back into

place) the disc and also strengthen the lower abdominals to stabilize the spine.

The research I've read said that the disc doesn't actually reduce but symptoms

are relieved, but others believe that the disc does reduce - so who knows. But

as a future PT (in 4 months ) I would prefer to see an MRI so that we know

that it is in fact a bulging disc and not something else going on such as MS.

One more question, does your foot-drop come and go? Is it constant, but has

gotten worse recently? Do the other sypmtoms you mentioned earlier come and go

or become more severe as the foot-drop does?

Good luck,

If you have any other questions, feel free to email me separately. I'm a little

slow at getting to the group messages, so it may take me a bit to respond.

McK in VA/AZ soon to be NM

> Hi All...Some of you may remember I had an awful bout with what was

> thought to be herniated disks @ L4,L5 with foot drop a few years ago.

> Because of my weight at the time, I could not get a clear MRI or CT

> scan. My weight is not a hiderance to that anymore.

>

> In the past few weeks, I've found my right foot dragging more, and

> have come close to major falls several times. My PCP wants me to have an

> MRI to see what is really going on. Also, there has been a concern for

> years about MS bcause of right eye droopiness, side of face

> droopiness, right side of body weakness, long before the thought of disk

> herniations.

>

> When I saw the neurosurgeon a few years ago he said that it really

> woudn't help to do anything furtther because the 'window' of

> opportunity to surgically help the herniation passes quickly, and had already

> passed at that point. So, I'm guessing the MRI now would just be to verify

> what is or is not going on...there wouldn't necessarily be any further

> way to improve things. Does that sound right? As to MS, that term

> has been bantered around for years (sort of like lupus) and I'm not sure

> anything could be done. I'm not too excited about having any more

> medical tests at this point - I'm not sure I see the point. But will

> do so if my PCP continues to encourage it. Any thoughts on this?

>

> Love...

>

> Tess in Oregon