Health

Once around 1990 and the last a couple of years ago. What I can say is this, regardless of the surgery, you will always have some back pain. It is the nature of the beast. Neurosurgeons are mechanics. They can only repair so much depending on your age and the severity of your impingement but all they may be able to do is reduce the pain, not eliminate it. After the last one I still had moderate pain. The doc said the last thing he could do was a disc fusion. At the time I really was tired of being in the hospital, so I put off the fusion. As time has gone on, my back where the surgery was is seems to be impinging on my spinal cord again causing neuropathy in my feet with increased numbness. I am debating whether or not to go visit the doc to see if I can get an updated MRI to see how much change the is from my last one, which was a mess. A friend of mine at age 45 had a lumbar fusion and it really helped him. At my age, 72, it might not be worth it.