... a little frightening to be having those symptoms.

If I understand correctly, you are saying this is new since you saw the doctor...the deep pain and no feelng to your leg.

I would call and let doctor know. Whenever something new is happening and esp something so severe..I think need to tell doctor. Then doctor can make decision if to worry or not.

Do not let the ER dismissive experience cause you to hesitate to get care or reassurance. Some people shouldn't even be in profession where compassion and understanding is needed.

You take care and keep talking until you are satisfied with answer and that you are okay.

Please let us know how you continue to progress.

I am very concerned that since my GP took me off work, no driving etc. It may be serious and am wondering what the neurosurgeon will want to do when I see him thurs.

My back has progressed in a year from minimal to moderate bulges and new foraminal and canal narrowing, as well as facet joint hypertrophy. The pain is significantly worse but the loss of feeling in my leg several times has me really nervous.

Could my GP be afraid of Cauda Equina? And if so, what type of surgery helps in that situation?

any thoughts, opinions would be greatly appreciated!

Cauda equina? Dont get ahead of your self there thinking the worse,

You have to push to get all the tests done such as mri, emg, mylogram to get the full picture and go from there to get a few opinions from some good neuro or ortho spine specialists,

Er will only look at whats there and if nothing is broken and they dont see much to worry about they will send you home and to follow up with your own specialists,

Its not realy about er dismissing it, Er can only do so much so unless your life is in danger they have no reason to keep looking and doing the spine specialists job and testings thats done many times out of the hospital,

Best of luck and hope you find a good specialist who can resolve this for you,

my ride side used to go out on me, would go completely weak and be uncontrollable. I would fall to the ground and almost fell out of chair once that had arms. My right side went dead and my upper body fell over the side of the arms it was all i could do to pull myself back up with my left arm.Its very scary and it never gets any better no matter how many times it happens. Hopefully your surgeon won't blow this off. At the time i had some bad stuff going on in my neck which ended up in surgery,but i was on a waiting list for over a year before i had mine and now i have irreversible problems.I really understand what your feeling and don't feel that your alone in this because your not,others have had this problem.I was told the same thing about your bowels and bladder,i had a lot of frequency but that all settled down after the surgery.

I agree with Alex, dont get ahead of yourself. The advice of go to the ER if any cauda equina symptoms show up is just to be cautious, I've heard this from numerous doctors over the years of back issues. It is in your best interest to get the advice of a couple top notch spine surgeons.

As for your experience with that surgeon, I had a run in with a pm doctor that was very similar. My wife and I both wanted to punch him and were worked up over it for weeks and the crazy thing about it was I wasnt even asking him for meds, my gp takes care of all of that. We were only there because a neurosurgeon we were going to see wanted me to be checked out by this doctor first. On top of all of this I ended up getting facet joint injections with him a few weeks later and the injections paralized me from my lower back down for five hours. Its a crazy ride dealing with spine issues and all you can do is try to be as objective as possible and keep your head up and advocate for yourself the best you can along the way.

As far as your leg issue, you need to do what your doing and get advice from a surgeon and dont take, I dont know as an answer, there are competent compassionate surgeons out there. Best of luck and keep us up to date on whats going on...Mitch

Thank you all for responding, it makes me feel like people care!

On Saturday I started getting a sharp pain between my pubis and inner right thigh which now extends around under my right buttock. It is very painful to walk, sit on toilet etc.

I am going stir crazy since I am normally very active 4 dogs and I have a bird rescue
(13 birds). I am going to go into work tomorrow to try it and come home if it hurts too much.

After all the pain I have been in, this is the final straw.

Has anyone else had this type of pain?

...but I can not tell if you decide to see a neurologist...pain doctor ...or someone more of a specialist??

There is a lot of info here..this site..articles etc to help you feel less alone and have more understanding of your situation.

For me, the kind of pain you describe and the pain I have...I need a doctor's help. Doc should be able to help and inform.

But mainly, I wanted to say pain is there for a reason...telling your body something's wrong...and I think sometimes...don't move that way.

Be careful pushing yourself with activities until you know what you are dealing with.

Hope you get to feeling your pain levels going down soon!

I wish that i had some better advice for you,but unfortunately until you see a doctor there really isn't much more i can say.These types of pain is very normal for back problems.Some days i have lots of pelvic pain and some days not.My outer legs always have pain and soreness going down them and my massage therapist says that its just the pain from my back going down my legs.My knees also hurt and my legs even swell at times. Hopefully you can get some answers soon.

After looking at my MRI and xrays, my dr says I need a discectomy, foraminotomy and a hemilamectomy!

After looking on these sites I have not seen anyone needing all these procedures at once. He said he wanted to go this route instead of going for a fusion first.

Has anyone heard of doing these all at once?

thank you for any info

I am guessing that maybe micro d with lami and i dont even remember what the last thing is that you wrote,

Many times they go in and do the procedure and do more then 1 thing before closing you up so they dont have to go in again, So if removing part of the disc and lami making more room for the nerve has to be done along with whatever else they have to clean up in there,

It may sound complicated but at least if its done in 1 surgery thats posibly to your benefit,

The dr can explain the procedure beter to you and whats his reason for doing it,
Also dont hurt to get another opinion see if another dr agrees with him on the surgery,

Best of luck,

In answer to your earlier question on pain, I'd say pain is probably subjective in that we can probably face a different amount before and after surgery and medication.

for any [localised] procedure I'd say alexh is right, better they do it at once than be opened up again and again, each time cutting through and potentially imparing what they cut through.

the surgories you identify all seem to be connected with something[s] pressing on your lower spinal cord, which contain the nerves goes into your leg and buttock, hence the leg/buttock pain. outside of seeing a neurosurgeon, i could only suggest seeing a very good physio [like local [pro] sports team]. I'd also agree a fusion should be the last option. you cannot undo a fusion!

You said originally the pain went after a bit, if this is continuing (i.e. comes and goes) then may be worth exploring with a physio. i.e. there is something wrong and certain movements magnify it. But your second post seems to refer to it being more continuous, in which case you might have passed the 'non-surgical' threshold.

either way, you should try and understand from your doc/neurosurg's opinion as to why this is happening, what do you do that caused this, recovery time after any surg and what do you need to change to avoid it happening again.

take care J