I have a couple bulging discs any divers with this problem

[tomboyy]

thanks for the advice guys. My doc is getting me a appt. with a neurosurgeon and then we'll sit down and make a plan of attack.

I wanted to share with ya'll a piece of an private message I just got, I'll kept his name private. This is the first paragraph, the rest wasn't any better

"Tom, this is pretty ridiculous. Would you post questions about scuba gear on the Mayo Clinic site? I hope you are getting medical proper medical advice and posting here just for fun. "Some back pain". "gets pretty bad". You don't even say lower back or upper back. Is the pain only in the back? Does it radiate down your arm or leg? Is it throbbing or continuous? Is there a back spasm? One and a half lines and you want medical advice? And you work in the medical field! "

This guy is really a piece of work... gotta run now, have a question about my brakes i have ta post on the Mayo Clinic Website

 

[rstofer]

My dive buddy in Singapore had back surgery just after OW I. I'm not clear on the details (we had just met) but apparently the surgeon had to open up the pathway.

To accomodate her diving (no massive ballast requirement), I would hump both sets of gear on and off the boat. When we got set up, I would toss her gear overboard and she would don the gear in the water. I would jump in and away we went.

This scheme served us very well for several months while she recovered. Boat diving is still my favorite.

Richard

 

[ringmod65]

I just wanted to pipe in with my bulging disc(s) history (C5, C6, C7).

What started as a couple of numb fingers on my left hand eventually left me flat on my back for three weeks in the most extreme pain of my life.

It took nearly five doctors before someone finally sent me for an MRI. What interested me most was that the doctor pointed out that I had had the same condition on my right side, but that the nerve had eventually re-routed around the bulge. That finally explained why I had a constant headache for at least six years - at the time I was a working musician and regularly lugged around heavy equipment.

Once diagnosed, all the doctors wanted to do was cut. It wasn't so much the prospect of future further damage due to fusing, but the fact that they gutted you like a fish to reach the spine that kept me from going that route.

The steroid injections worked twice. The third time I lost cerebrospinal fluid and suffered the most insanely painful headache for a solid week. The fourth time, the steroids made me crazy - yep, nuts.

Finally, at the urging of several friends and family members, I saw an chiropractor. Luckily, my wife's insurance covered both the adjustments and therapeutic massage. The chiropractor made many, in retrospect, common sense suggestions that I believe went a long way towards alleviating the condition, which was largely thought to be due to sitting in front of my computer at the law firm for 12-14 hours six days a week. Ultimately, multiple breaks from the computer (largely as a result of greatly increased h2o intake), increased movement in the form of daily walks, and - yes - getting out of the big law firm racket largely solved my problems.

The one lingering effect of my disc problems is that I have a severely limited range of neck articulation, which makes it difficult for me to attain and maintain proper trim, which is why my teammates always know that I am swimming slightly above them.

Best of luck. To this day, every time I get even the mildest sensation of numbness down my arm or in my fingers, I panic and make sure that I'm getting enough hydration and movement.

 

[TSandM]

Back pain is an almost ubiquitous complaint of the modern world. I can't remember the precise figures, but the last paper I read about it said that something like 60% of the American adult population has experienced back pain severe enough to visit a physician about it. Back pain accounts for a tremendous amount of lost work days and people on disability, as well as chronic narcotics use.

And the worst news is that we don't have anything really good to do about it. Study after study shows that it's difficult to prove that any one approach to back pain is superior. Surgery clearly works, if the patient population is VERY carefully selected for those with both anatomic abnormalities and neurologic symptoms that CORRELATE with the anatomy seen. But surgery is not a panacea, and there are many people who are made worse by it. Chiropractic care tends to produce greater patient satisfaction, but it's my personal opinion, from my experience with back pain, that it's more because the chiropractor is glad to see you, where everybody else is most emphatically NOT. Physical therapy can work in some cases, but there are no good criteria for selecting those cases. Acupuncture can be effective at pain relief but does not address the underlying problem.

Weight management, core muscle strengthening, careful lifting procedures, and maintaining flexibility are key to avoiding worsening symptoms or developing symptoms, but don't address the acute episode. And nothing, including surgery, does much good for degenerative arthritis.

The bottom line is that, in the absence of acute, marked neurological symptoms, most patients are probably better off beginning with simple strategies like PT, stretching, and mild pain medication. If those don't work or don't reduce the pain to a tolerable level, spinal imaging is the next step -- but as already stated, a huge number of people have "disc bulges" on MRI who have little or no back pain, so the correlation between symptoms and imaging has to be done carefully and with a hefty dose of skepticism.

Good luck with your back. I avoided surgery on mine and had several years of pain, but it went away and now I can cope with it the vast majority of the time with NSAIDs and the odd chiropractic visit.

 

[SharkWhisperer]

I knew there would be a lot of opinions on this.
In 2001, I had a motorcycle accident that shattered my right leg, (Tibia, Fibula and Femur), it also shattered my back.
After having surgery for the leg and being in a cast for the better part of 9 months, and therapy for a year learning to walk again. The back "repair" caused major disc bulges, and disc degeneration, my spine was essentially grinding itself into powder.
I endured years of fighitng with workman's comp (the original motorcycle accident was on duty) and eventually was living with pain so intense, I was taking 300 + mg of Oxy-Contins.
Finally, after all the therapy, nerve block injections, toradol, demoral, morhine, Lidocaine, everything was exhausted, I went under the knife and had my spine rebuilt.
It's now a wonderful collection of titanium rods and fused bone (they use cadaver bone for that) and I'm fused from L5 to L2.
My back has never been better, and I dive at least once a week, off boat, beach or whatever. It removed all the pain, I still take the occasional Aleve, but nothing like what I went through.

I recommend getting as many opinions as possible, and finding the best spine surgeon you can, I'd refer to you my guy, but here's here in California.

 

[Sloeber]

Interesting thread. Sorry to bump it but it came up in a search of mine.

A recent accident aggrivated an a injury from some 10 years prior. After an MRI I'm left with a herniation of L4-L5. You can clearly see the disc oozing down my spinal column. I've had 2 injuecitons which have done tremendous in reducing the nerve pain that was extreme from hip joint to toes. I wasn't able to walk prior to the injections; now I can actively walk mostly pain free. However, there is still some nerve pain and such. I've done pool therapy and I think it did little to help. I used to be active (college football athlete) and did many things from weight training to competitive cycling. I'm a large structured male, and weighed 255lbs solid at 6'4". This spring, previous to my back injury, I wrecked on a bicycle, breaking many bones. My activity level dropped to near zero in recovery, and I added 35lbs, mostly in my belly. Then the back injury, and now the rehab. I'm not cleared to do any excercise that will aid in weight loss, so all I have is diet, which for me is very hard (work in a restaurant). My hope is now to get back surgery with the hopes of making enough recovery to be able to excercise and begin losing weight. With all that said, this is where it gets tricky. I expect to leave this upcoming spring to acheive my DM and OWI certs, but feel I should get the surgery first. When I first leave I don't plan to dive, mostly just chill on the local beach, but eventually I need to get back diving. I'm curious, for those of you with successful surgery, how long did you have to wait after surgery before you could dive again?

 

[SelkieDVM]

I started the thread that Jax referenced. I feel very fortunate in that my pain and neurologic signs resolved completely after a second nerve root injection, and I've not had any recurrence (knock wood). So there's hope, but perhaps my case was more the exception.

 

[mikecotrone]

Like some others on here I have degenerative disks and my L4/L5 blew out 5 years ago. I had a neurosurgeon remove the bulge since it was up against a bunch of nerves. Since the last 12 months I have been losing weight and exercising which has proved to increase my back strength. (TS&M is right on the money with this one) Now I really do not have any back issues unless I just completely over do-it in a day.

I wanted to share with ya'll a piece of an private message I just got, I'll kept his name private. This is the first paragraph, the rest wasn't any better

"Tom, this is pretty ridiculous. Would you post questions about scuba gear on the Mayo Clinic site? I hope you are getting medical proper medical advice and posting here just for fun. "Some back pain". "gets pretty bad". You don't even say lower back or upper back. Is the pain only in the back? Does it radiate down your arm or leg? Is it throbbing or continuous? Is there a back spasm? One and a half lines and you want medical advice? And you work in the medical field! "

This guy is really a piece of work... gotta run now, have a question about my brakes i have ta post on the Mayo Clinic Website

Don't let it bother you since Some people on here are just A-Holes for whatever reason.

However most people are genuinely nice and provide great helpful information. I believe that there aren't any dumb questions if you are willing to ask.

:HHGTTG:

 

[pnw_diver]

I have degenerative disc disease affecting T3, T4, and T5. I've seen both a neurologist and a surgeon and passed on surgery (the risk outweighed the reward to me). I've lost some mobility over the years, but so far it has not kept me from diving. Were my issues in the cervical spine, the outcome could have been different.

I'm currently being treated with mild muscle relaxors and non-steroid anti-imflammatary drugs. That treatment has resulted in me being asymptomatic most of the time.

 

[merxlin]

I ruptured my L4-L5 disk 13 years ago. It blew out so hard it impinged my sciatic nerve against the spine. It was like having a 3 ft hot poker down my right leg. Occasionally I got some relief, but it seemed it could flare up without even moving. I tried alternative methods for about 3 weeks then had surgery where they removed the disk material that had escaped (I lost about 40% of the disk gel), and sealed up the disk. Unless I do something stupid that causes a big impact force on my back (like jumping down from a wall or out of the back of a pick up onto concrete, etc.) I have been predominately pain free, including 10-12 hour days of motorcycle riding and multi-day dive trips. With a ruptured disk there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Surgery seems top be the only way to go. But mine luckily was completely successful.