I also had a discetomy on l5 that reherniated after 3 months. My surgeon gave the choice of a redo or fusion. I chose re-do. It has now been 4 years later and the surgery is holding. I was told that if it re-herniates again that I will have to have a fusion.
Susan

I have had 4 previous cervical surgeries with fusion. My surgeon and I both agreed that fusion of my lower back would be the last result. I have issues with my neck and could not imagine dealing with neck and back both. I do occasionally have flare-ups with my back and fear one day a fusion will have to be done but for now all is well. Or should I say as well as possible.lol.
Susan

As I think you know, you would be really pushing the time frame to get back to work within 4 1/2 weeks after a fusion. I imagine it has been done, but it really wouldn't be fair to go through all the things involved with fusion and then not give enough time to a full recovery.

Sometimes a "reherniation" is more a result of an incomplete surgery the first time rather than a complete reinjury. Sometimes just enough of a small piece is left behind. It can cause problems right away or it can take months for it to get to a point where it begins to irritate a nerve or cause some inflammation. The symptoms increase until the patient feels like "it is starting all over again" and feels she/he has a reherniation of the same disc.

The surgeon can go back in, clean out these pieces and the patient doesn't have further problems at that particular segment.

Depending on how bad your stenosis is at L4-5 and L5-S1, it would appear that your surgeon would want to fuse several levels.

We tried to get by with fusing one level (L4-5) but I have continued to have nerve pain problems, and am probably going to go back and have the adjoining levels fused after the holidays...haven't fully made up my mind yet.

Anyway, hope the ESI gives you some relief and you can put off all surgeries for awhile.

Gwennie

I reherniated 1 month post op and 6 months later I needed to have a 2 level TLIF with titanium hardware. I also had more nerve compression and retrolisthesis going on that had to be dealt with. I hope your ESI gives you relief. Take care

I re-herniated a week after my first one. My surgeon advised me to have a 2nd microD because a fusion would be a last resort. He said jumping from microD to fusion would be drastic. In my case, a 2nd microD was an available option.
I was glad that I didn't have to choose fusion because I know the recovery from a fusion would be a lot more painful and lengthy.

My disc was pretty much shot. An MVA 6 weeks after a micro pretty much did it in. We tried meds and Pt and ESI and got nowhere.

So I opted for fusion because is made sense. I will be starting PT on week 4-6. I will also be returning to work part-time to try it out. I'm a desk jockey. So getting up and moving around is my biggest enemy. We will see how it goes. I went back to work after 4 weeks from my micro and only did part time as sitting was a killer.

I don't think 12 weeks off work for a micro is realistic. That is pushing the envelope. 12 weeks for a traditional fusion sure.

Then again we all heal at different rates and some have different theories on how long they should recover.

I'm not using FMLA or STD as I don't want to take the pay cut. I'm using 2 weeks of sick then 2 weeks of vacation. When I return part-time then it will be flex time and I can do some work from home. So it all fits nice and legal with HR.