Suffer from extreme sciatica

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Hello, this is my first time on a discussion forum because of my hesitance to talk about the problems I have been suffering from. I just turned twenty and have been suffering from this for a little over two and a half years. I was in a bad car accident about a month before my eighteenth birthday that left my spine with extensive damage. I have excruciating pain in both of my hips, down my legs, into my feet. My feet go numb very often and I have had trouble driving recently. I cannot ride a bike because I cannot push the pedals fast enough to pick up momentum. I have a horrible fear that someday soon I will be paralyzed. I also have trouble walking and just standing in one place sends my whole body into excruciating pain. When I have extreme pain like that, the pain shoots down my legs and up through my spine. Currently I only see a chiropractor because I was cleared after about eleven months of intense physical therapy. If anyone has any answers that will but my pain at ease, I would really really appreciate the ideas.

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  • Posted

    Here are my experiences with sciatica...

    https://patient.info/forums/discuss/sciatic-nerve-pain-from-the-perspective-of-many-decades-629096

    However, with your history of that car accident, I'd go see a neurosurgeon ASAP. Have the doc order a CT/Myelogram with contrast...the "gold standard" test for spinal injuries. Also, having the pain down both legs could indicate stenosis and not sciatica. Feels similar (I've had both) but stenosis is caused by the narrowing of the foraminal canals in your spine. All nerve roots pass through them so if there is a compression of some kind, the effect can be bilateral.

    That's what happened to me. Fixed permanently in one day with a Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion (LLIF) where they drill out your disk, insert a device and expand it like a car jack to open up the foramina thereby taking all the pressure off the nerve roots. Mine was at L2/L3. Immediate and total relief, one night in the hospital, no brace, no rehab. Miracle op.

    Search YouTube for "Globus LLIF" for the procedure and "Globus Calibur" for the device. Worked great for me.

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