prolapsed disc update

Hello, I had an operation on my prolapsed disc 12 years ago, and I am still suffering today, it left me with scarring which is causing me pain everyday. I wish they had never operated but I had no choice as there was so much damage and in the end I couldn't walk and the pain was terrible. I am still backwards and forwards to doctors and hospitals and had various treatments but nothing works I have had to live with it. I am at the pain clinic this week again. I would just like to say that after any surgery on your back it is never the same again. What made me have so much damage to my spine was that I was left to long before having the surgery, so please keep on at your doctor to get you sorted as I would hate it if you ended up like me.

Hi i know how you feel i have had 2 ops on my back the first L4/5 disc prolapse so what did the surgeon do he did L3/4 instead needless to say i didn't get better and it took 10 months of going back and forth to see consultant before they got me in there office and told me this bit of news and in the next sentance told me they would op the next week , so to cut a long story short they did the disc they should have done in the first place but after the second op i never got better and like you i suffer everyday the length of time that my disc was left it was compressing my sciatic nerve which is now permanantly damaged, the only good thing is the surgeon who did my op has addmited he was at fault so i am suing the hosp but no matter what i may or may not recieve in compansation it will never give me back my quality of live back i wish i had never let them near me but good luck these things happen but not to everyone so go along with good advice.

Hi,

I too am in the 'left too long and botched surgery club' and am now sueing the NHS. Pattie can I ask you......was the problem that you have a transitional lumbrosacral level, i.e an extra vertabra and possibly an extra disc? It is the biggest cause of surgery at the wrong level.

After 5 MRI scans, 5 consultant meetings and 2 operations, the last scan showed that I had an extra vertebra and disc. As this is something that is part of your physical make up it seemed odd to me that this new fact had come to light. The latest MRI indicates the decompression work was done at the wrong level, but they are denying it.

I'd be really interested in finding out more.

Best wishes

TFU

Hi all, it has really shocked me that I am not alone with surgery that has gone wrong on our spines, in a way I am comforted as I do not feel alone but then again it is unacceptable. I am dreading going to the pain clinic, I have been many times now and each time I got my hopes up and then walked away in tears because they were useless and just put me on medication that made me really ill. There should be more care and help.

Hi cats eyes

I think that you will find that there are quite a few people out there that are in a similar boat. Just look around the pain clinic. The question that I regularly ask myself is \"if on the first day I was aware I had a back problem I had gone to see someone privately would my course of treatment and the end result have been the same?\" I truly believe it wouldn't have been. I truly believe that the problem basically lies firmly in the fact that the NHS is slow and inefficient in dealing with spinal problems. It makes me very angry that had I gone to see the surgeon privately, I would have been seen and treated so much quicker. That in turn means that I would have had a better prognosis. None of this nonsense of waiting weeks for a first appointment, being sent for an MRI that takes weeks, then waiting weeks for an appointment to see the surgeon again, then weeks/months for surgery. If it was private, the appointment would be that week, the MRI would probably be the following day and the next appointment no more than a few days later. Then just days until the operation. Something is very wrong with the system. If you research you can find all sorts of articles to say that the NHS are farming out clinical/surgical work to the private sector. Not to get down the waiting lists, but because they are actually cheaper in doing the work!!!! How can that be so??? We are now spending over a billion pounds on the NHS, but ask anybody who has got caught up in this circus and they all say the same thing.

I note what you say about going along to the pain clinic, hopes up high just to leave in tears again. God I know that feeling. my whole life seems to evolve around this scenario. First of all you get the build up to the appointment, then you leave knowing that nothing meaningful has happened and then you wait for the next letter for the next appointment in x number of weeks and the whole cycle starts again. It's bad enough when it is happening pre-sugery, but post-surgery, it is horrible. As I have always said I would much rather they were just completely honest. If it is hopeless then I would rather somebody told me that, rather than just patronising me with either \"wait and see\" or \"try this and we'll see how you get on\".

Personally I feel that I am going around in ever decreasing circles, just doomed to being stuck with these problems forever. People who have successful spinal surgery and people who don't really are poles apart. Maybe one day they will have new technology to help people like us, certainly I have given up any hope of anything meaningful happening in the near future. Maybe that sounds negative but it is hard to know where any meaningful help is coming from in 2008. And when they start lying to you, then it is time to give up!!

Good luck at the pain clinic.

Best wishes

TFU

oops, the NHS annual spend is of course over one hundred billion pounds a year. Not a billion. That is an eye watering......100,000,000,000 a year. Give it to Richard Branson, he'd soon have it sorted, and all the nurses could wear natty red uniforms and hand out peanuts with a smile :lol: :lol: Each time I was in hospital getting a smile from a nurse was like getting manure from a rocking horse!!!!

TFU

I am appalled at some of your stories and quiet scared. I first suffered from a bulging disc eight years ago and fortunatley it settled down in a couple of weeks. I have had two episodes since then until December this year when I was involved in a car crash. I already had permenant loss of sensation in my right foot but for the last seven months I have been in agonising pain.

After being fobbed off with painkillers etc. for months I finally convinced my GP to refer me to a spinal specialist 5 weeks ago. By then the numbness had progressed further in my foot and up my calf. I have also had three falls where my leg had given way underneath me.

On Monday, I called my GP to discuss my referal as I had not recieved a letter to say that I was even on the waiting list. Upon speaking to her, it became clear that not only had she forgotton to do the referel but she had not typed up the notes of our consulation in June. I described my symptons again over the phone and she assured me that the referal would be done the next day. After much tooing and froing from the surgery I now have a copy of the referal which incorrectly states that the pain and loss of sensation is in my left (and not right leg).

I I have struggled on and not complained and feel that the doctors have not taken me seriously. After all this time I feel angry and depressed. I don't earn much money but am considering trying to go privately.

Hi sj,

I'm sorry to hear about what has happened. You say that you are apalled to read of the stories here, but reading yours it isn't any better. It is the same catalogue of errors, delays and general incompetency. I just hope that your GP pulls out all the stops to get you an urgent appointment now. If now, I'm afraid the NHS guidelines for GP referral to a Consultant is 13 weeks. And trust me they usually take every minute of those 13 weeks!!! It just isn't fair that you may now be penalised because of somebody else's mistake.

It sounds as though you have a lot of neurological deficit with your leg/foot, particularly if you are falling over sometimes. Your GP should have referred you on months ago. And as you have already found out it is all well and good taking loads of painkillers, but they aren't going to make you better!!!

Like you I had a lot of problems with my leg/foot, including the odd fall. i found that when I walked my knee and foot would be sort of unco-ordinated, probably only by a split second, but that was all it took. Then I would be conscious of every step and over compensating, but what I didn't know at the time was that that was putting extra stress on my hips and lining up muscloskeletal problems on top of that too.

Just be careful. And keep pressing for that appointment. At least once you see someone then you can get a scan and some meaningful treatment. Just make sure you knock on doors VERY LOUDLY!!!!!!!!

Best wishes to you

TFU