Back story:
I am in the military and had a back surgery about eight years ago due to falling off of a boat shed and landing on a clear (metal thing you tie small boats to) The military health care system in their infinite wisdom told me initially that the pain was just due to the fall and that it would heal over time. 6 months goes by and swelling and pain do not subside so I go to a civilian ER when I couldn’t walk and they did X-rays and MRIs. I had a compression fracture of my L2 and L3 and where it had been so long the vertebrate has starting healing but they were not healing the way they were supposed to so surgery ensued. They had to go in cut the vertebrate apparat and then do a spinal fusion in the right way. (?)
I still have pain both sciatic as well as localized, I’ve been through physical therapy, and the massive amounts of muscle relaxers and pain killers. My previous primary care manager (navy doc) tried telling me that my pain was due to muscle weakness and kept ordering me back to physical therapy. The PT kept discharging me due to the fact that she could find no imbalance or weakness and treatment was not working. I got to the point where I was almost yelling at this doctor, which is difficult in the military because he “out ranks” me because he was not understanding that maybe he could be wrong in my diagnosis. First question here would be, how do you talk to providers who let their egos get in the way of treatment?
I have recently changed primary care managers and this doc has viewed my X-rays and MRI’s and is suggesting another surgery. I know that I am not you guys patient nor would I take anything you say as a diagnosis without actually having seen patient history and a hands on assessment. But what would you make of the situation? Would the surgery be beneficial for long term health and strength. I’ve been told a lot that given my situation there is no fix to the pain only management of such pain. To be honest I would rather not pop ibuprofen like breath mints for the rest of my life but since they have stopped with the narcotics (which I’m okay with) seems to be my only option.
Thanks in advanced if this Post makes it through your criteria.