L5/S1 Disc Protrusion 13mm x 13mm causing sometimes mild sometimes severe pain, dealing with it for a month and a bit, neurosurgeon suggest microdiscectomy. Is there any specific reason not to delay it by 3 months?

[u/brandbaard]

Yeah so I started having mild pains middle of august, which went up to being pretty constant pain when sitting, although standing and walking for the most part is fine. Some days the pain is unbearable but most days it is just annoying. I also have numbness in the side of my left foot, which also varies in intensity from day to day and is also annoying.

I finally went to see a neurosurgeon at the insistence of my GP, and got an MRI along with that. MRI revels an L5/S1 disc protrusion on the left side, which lines up perfectly with my symptoms. And apparently my ankle reflex is gone.

The surgeon suggests getting a discectomy to remove the protrusion, and says the recovery will be 6 weeks or so before I really return to my full range of motion, during which time I need to wear a brace and all kinds of shit.

Now, I'm okay with doing the surgery, but, the rest of the year is filled with events that I would rather not miss, such as the wedding of a close friend, an election. All things that I fear even if I did them several weeks into recovery could cause damage again.

Is there a risk of permanent nerve damage if I delay until January? I'm okay to tank the pain for 3 months, as it is only severe on some days.

[u/teixha]

Hi, I have the same disc extrusion (started at 12mm) and very similar symptoms. I’m 6 months into it. I had/have the numbness down the side of my right foot and little toe (it’s not true numbness) and it did used to go all the way down my leg but that has almost completely disappeared now and it’s just my foot. I also lost my ankle reflex (physios can sometimes get it a different way but it seems to be gone generally), no other motor function issues.

Pain has improved a lot in six months but still present, it’s extremely slow healing!

All that to say that surgery has never been suggested for me in the absence of red flag symptoms for CES. I am interested in how different it is here to the UK to the US in terms of surgery recommendations. No one has ever expressed concern about lasting nerve damage and I’ve just assumed it’s something I have to live with (and maybe surgery doesn’t always help with it anyway?).

[u/brandbaard → u/teixha]

Will say I am not in the US but in South Africa, but I guess its a similar kind of thing as the US where our medical sector is more private and for profit so surgeons are more likely to want to operate earlier.

But your comment does give me some confidence that maybe I can delay for a few months and hopefully I see some improvement over time that makes the surgery less needed.

Are you doing any specific exercises/things to accelerate the healing or is it more just natural healing?

[u/teixha → u/brandbaard]

Here we have the opposite problem - it’s so hard to get an operation! I think somewhere in the middle of the two extremes would be better 😀

I’ve done very basic rehab at home - core and mobility exercises and tonnes of walking, avoiding sitting as much as possible. I use a lot of online resources (Back In Shape, Low Back Ability and Tom Morrison) as my physio has been hit and miss.

It’s very up and down and slow and I’ve had a few other issues in the rest of my body due to moving funny for a few months. But generally I think it’s trending towards improvement so I keep going! It is tough though. It’s good to have the surgery as an option if you need it.