Annette
Mary: Try to get away from any type of surgery...some of your diagnosis is simular to mine in some ways...mine is not severe but with mild diagnosis...and my pain in the beginning was terrible...to avoid surgery since early November of 2000 I have been in physical therapy...it is what I would recommend for treatment...and the treatment could take as long as 9 months or better...I can a least do my grocery shopping...etc..where as before it was impossible...use only the pain medication when needed for sleep etc...and use muscle relaxers as much as possible....the pain medication only hides your pain and you may over due and injure yourself even more... I still have problems with housecleaning and the shopping but I can be on my feet now for more than 15 minutes...even still it's very easy to overdue..sometimes just doing dinner and the dishes is painful....brushing my teeth...etc..was a chore because of the bending over the sink...blow drying my hair is difficult whether bending over to get the hair underneath or doing the top of my head...my problems are cervical and lumbar...to give you an idea....my lumbar is disc desiccation with mild posterior bulge at L4-L5 causing mild central canal stenosis. and Degenerative disc disease with loss of disc space height, disc desiccation and endplate changes at L5-S1 with a posterior bulge eccentric to the left causing mild left neural foramina narrowing. My cervical spine shows mild posterior bulge at C7-T1 causing mild central canal stenosis. Even though mine is mild....I truly understand the pain...at first diagnosed I could not even get dressed after my MRI was done...I finally got my pants on and shirt but walked out of the clinic barefoot because I could not even get my shoes on...I sat there teared up wondering if I was even going to be able to get dressed...I forced my self to do so..only because I was embarrassed to ask if I could wear their little outfit home and return it later...imagine being embarrassed of pain...that was on December 8th...but today with my physical theapy 3X a week I can at least do much better...avoiding surgery if at all possible is the way to go...I have seen too many friends and co-workers who are possibly worse off now than they were to begin with if only they had given the theapy a try and do it long enough...I don't beleive the pain will entirely go away but maybe one day with some weight loss...etc...I will be able to do some of things I used to do...and I hope for the best for you...give a try....and see if it does'nt help..but be patient...and search the web for all the information you can gather...print it off for referring back to...be informative...that's what I'm trying to do and that is how I stumbled accross your plea's....Good Luck and God be with you.....Annette