hi and welcome to the forum! we are here to offer you support and answer what questions we can. i am sorry you are in chronic pain. not being able to play with your daughter must be very difficult. believe it or not there are mothers here who say there little children really understand and become good helpers when mommy is not feeling well. i am sure you will find the same with your sweet daughter. please try the conservative measures before you opt for surgery. a pain management specialist might be of the best help for that. you don't say what medications you are on? there are some good pain medications available to help deal with chronic pain. also with sciatica. you never know if something is going to work so you had to atleast try the inversion table. now you can mark that off your list!! good luck in your future pain trials. Jenny

I am so sorry to hear that you are suffering. especially with a young child to care for. I hope that you will get relief from conservative treatment because as we all know there are no guarantees with surgery. Good luck to you and please keep us posted.

Hi, you are not alone. I have read dozens of stories like yours in the past couple of months. I had a large L5-S1 herniation in April. Tried all conservative measures (physical therapy, steriod epidurals, selective nerve root block, etc...). I gave in to the microdiscectomy a month ago as the Vicodin and Motrin 800's were only able to knock to pain down from a 9 to about a 5 and I just couldn't take it anymore. Everything was going great after the surgery. I was doing all of the walking that the surgeon suggested and my hip/glute, hamstring, calf, sleeping/numb foot pain had all gone down approximately 80%. My surgeon even told me that I could start lightly on the eliptical. Anyway, we went on a 6 hour car trip over Thanksgiving and between the sitting in the car and the extra soft hotel bed I came home hurting very badly. It is not getting better and I am terrified and almost sick to my stomach that something has gone horribly wrong with my surgically altered disc already. I am only 41 years old and still have small children and I can't live like this! If I didn't have so much to live for I would have already put a bullit in my head. If I can get up the courage to ask for another MRI that confirms my worst fears I think I will try and push for an artificial disc this time. Everything I hear about fusions is all bad. I hear that they don't like to do artificial discs on people under 60 as they don't yet know how long they will last but I would be happy if it lasted 10 years. Then they could just remove it and put in another new one, kind of like putting a new motor mount on a car.

L5-S1 Disc Rupture, you sound JUST like me. I am 38, have already had one microdiscectomy between L4 & L5 and had a cervical (neck) fusion 6 months later. NOW, I have the EXACT same pain you are describing. I had an injection last week and it wore off 3 days later. Going for another injection tomorrow (12/4). Wish me luck. I am SICCCCCCCKKKKK of being in pain all the time!!!!!!!!

So, how was the shot yesterday? Any pain relief yet? Is your current pain from your neck fusion or your L4-L5 disc? Hopefully not BOTH! Have you had a recent MRI? I am terrified to go back but I know I will have to soon.

You sure have been thru a lot. I'm glad your 3 year old is doing fine and I am amazed you made it back to work. I hope you recover full from this so one day you can pick your daughter up. I think hugs and kisses will tide her over til then. Take care, and welcome to SH