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Abdominal Pain, Diarrhea, Spinal Pain. MRI Shows Bulging Disc. What Type Of Surgery Will Help?
2 yrs ago I some how hurt my lower back, saw a doctor and was told that I had muscle spams. Now recently In April I ended up in the hospital for a few things. One I had abdominal painful pain, and crazy diaherra, and really bad spinal pain. And MRI was done and I was told that I had a bulging disc on L5 S1. Now in June an othropedic doc did some spine injection and the pain got worst . So another MRI was done and now I have 8 mm disc protrusion. I being sent to a spine surgeron in few days. My question is what type of surgery would be require to fix my problem
Sat, 10 Aug 2013
Hi, thanks for writing to HCM.
Not all protruded discs need surgical intervention. Surgical decompression is indicated in cases of severe back pain accompanied by shooting pain down the entire leg along with tingling or numbness.
So, an initial conservative method of management can be tried as follows -
* avoid lifting heavy weights as it imparts more strain on your back
* avoid forward bending activities as it will worsen the disc protrusion
* Use a lumbosacral back support to augment your spinal muscles
* Intermittent pelvic traction to cause a regression of disc
* Maintain optimum body weight,if you are obese
* Physiotherapy to strengthen your back muscles. Physiotherapy has to be done only after the acute pain has subsided.
* Judicious use of analgesics and muscle relaxants.
Hope this information is helpful. Good day
Not all protruded discs need surgical intervention. Surgical decompression is indicated in cases of severe back pain accompanied by shooting pain down the entire leg along with tingling or numbness.
So, an initial conservative method of management can be tried as follows -
* avoid lifting heavy weights as it imparts more strain on your back
* avoid forward bending activities as it will worsen the disc protrusion
* Use a lumbosacral back support to augment your spinal muscles
* Intermittent pelvic traction to cause a regression of disc
* Maintain optimum body weight,if you are obese
* Physiotherapy to strengthen your back muscles. Physiotherapy has to be done only after the acute pain has subsided.
* Judicious use of analgesics and muscle relaxants.
Hope this information is helpful. Good day
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It will require Discectomy( Means removal of protruded disc along with a part of disc by pulling. so that recurence is decreased. Surgery may be by endoscopic surgery or through a small incision of around 1.5-2inches in lenght. called micro discectomy. Nothing to worry. Very safe and nice surgery. results are very good. Usually day care or one day hospital stay. Start walking on very next day. Only precaution will be forward bending and heavy weight lifting which will be taken care for around a month or so. All the best.
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