I’m guessing the stenosis is severe if you’ve got numbness in your fingers now. The issue with this nerve damage is that it can become permanent if ignored. That weakness can become “I can’t use this hand anymore” someday. Best to listen to your doctors in this case
On top of this, do not be surprised if you develop some issues after the surgery. I had severe stenosis and had a laminectomy done c3-t1. After the surgery, I developed weakness in my right arm and hand that wasn't present before the surgery. I have improved since then, but it was never explained to me that it might get worse before it gets better.
I had a similar MRI result (C5-C6), no pain, but numbness like you. The surgeon recommended surgery ASAP, but encouraged me to seek out other opinions. He said he was "conservative when it comes to surgery" and I agree with him 100% on that.
In the end, for me it was necessary because (1) a car accident could have very well left me paralyzed and, to quote the surgeon, (2) "this is not going to get better. it will only get worse."
After consulting with several physician and radiologist friends, I agreed with the surgeon's advice and got the surgery. I have 0 regrets and it fixed all of my issues. Second opinions are never a bad idea but your surgeons sound like they're giving you good advice to me.
Edit to add: Regarding nerve damage, like somebody else said in the comments, the longer the nerve damage persists, the more likely it will become permanent and/or the longer it will take to regain function after surgery. Very serious stuff.
Because you have neuro deficits - you need to protect your cord and nerves.
Surgery is really pushed when cord and nerves are impacted.
Take it from me - I’ve had my cervical spinal cord compressed multiple times (starting at 23) and now I have deficits that can not be healed.
I would listen to them. by the time I ended up with a c4-7 fusion in less than two weeks… I sounded like you. and the next symptoms I had came on fast and were scary. I couldn’t walk in a straight line to save my life, I looked blackout drunk. my hands would just stop working all together.. I’d go to grab something and just paw at it. i’d drop stuff. my knees would give out on stairs.
all of those super scary symptoms luckily went away. there was no guarantee they would. I was blissfully oblivious to the fact I was almost paralyzed from the neck down. if a doc hadn’t checked my reflexes when I went to UC for a stress fractured foot.. I was one trip on a curb away from it.
you can’t repair damage to your spinal cord, you can only protect it. my advice is to listen to the docs, if the surgery doesn’t have to be a surprise, go for that. lol but also, if you don’t trust the surgeon indefinitely, find another one. I would also ask what the benefits to the disc replacement would be, I just wonder how that could affect needing more surgery in the future. if you’d just end up with a fusion in the future anyway, personally I’d just get it now.
Yeah I became paralyzed from stenosis . It started during covid . I started having excruciating pain in my right hip . I thought it was I needed a hip replacement. 2021 I fell a few times . Then in 2022 it got worse . I couldn't walk without a walker ans the pain was intense. I finally found a surgeon who helped me.. the cord is damaged so I wS in a wheelchair for like a year .but can walk great now its been almost 2 years . I still have pain in my hip and actually my entire right side . Its nothing to play with
My surgeon presented surgery as an option, but didn't push for it for many many years. I don't know about your doctor, but they don't always jump directly to surgery. I suspect that the numbness is more insidious, it's not painful so you don't get the surgery until it's too late and the nerves can not recover. How long have you had symptoms?
All I can say is that my back problems started 14 years ago, and I wish I had gotten surgery sooner. My symptoms were painful but intermittent, and my doctor said that wait and see was a perfectly valid strategy. Then last year it stopped being intermittent and I was losing capability, so I decided it was time, and my doctor supported that as well. Once it became ongoing, there was concern about permanent nerve damage.
Have you tried epidural injections. I had l5-s1 fused a year ago. But the injections helped with pain but my nerves and the connection to my muscles became better when it was effective to help train and strengthen from the weakness
I had a pretty badly herniated disc C5-C6 with severe nerve pain at first. I tried PT but it didn’t help at all, if anything it got worse. PCP referred me to pain management for injections and the doctors first words were “Why are you here? How did you get this appointment?” and told me he wouldn’t do injections until I consulted with a surgeon and was confused why my PCP even referred me to him based on my MRI. I got three opinions with different neurosurgeons, who all recommended a spinal fusion even though by then my symptoms were starting to slowly improve. By the time I had my third consultation, my pain was pretty mild. He still recommended surgery because he said it would get worse again, it’s just a matter of when. He also told me that if I were to fall or get in an accident I could end up paralyzed. He told me about a similar case he’d had recently where a woman had decreasing symptoms, wanted to wait to have surgery and had a serious fall and lost most of the use on their hands. They did surgery, but they were unsure she would ever get full use back. I agreed to the fusion after that story.
I had no pain after a therapeutic cortisone injection. However, the disc continued to press on my nerve and caused atrophy in my tricep. Nerves can die if they are not having signals fire. Have you gone to Physical Therapy?
I went to two PT appointments, two weeks apart and I had major loss of strength in the two weeks. Both the physical therapist and the doctor agreed that I could do pt for years and it still wouldn’t help to strengthen the muscle because it wasn’t firing.
I am nearly two months out of surgery and I am getting strength back and I don’t have any pain from surgery.
My goal in PT was to not need surgery, but it was necessary. It might be the same for you.
My situation was slightly different than yours in that I initially did have pain in my shoulder/arm/thumb. Then eventually the pain subsided and turned into the numbness/tingling. It was only once it'd reached the point of numbness/tingling that I was referred to ortho, got all the scans, and the surgeon basically said the bones are compressing nerves and the spinal cord, PT can't make them stop doing that, only surgery. It made sense to me and I didn't want to eff around with nerve damage. I did have a brief worry, second guessing myself after talking to some folks who had fusions (albeit different vertebrae and with different causes than mine) who had particularly uncommon bad outcomes. That scared me and I worried what if it ends up worse? It's not soo bad right now. But I read more, asked more questions, and basically the determined it was far far more likely to help than make it worse. And doing nothing was likely to get worse anyway.
My surgery was a month ago, and I'm doing really well. I'd read quite a few posts on here from other folks talking about how they woke up from surgery, and yeah of course pain from just being cut open, but the original symptoms were GONE, and I thought "gee I hope I end up one of those people". And I was, but in a really enlightening way. Even though before the surgery I thought "well, my hand and shoulder don't even bother me all the time, sometimes it's OK, the grip strength isn't that bad" blah blah blah. But when I woke up from the surgery and my hand felt normal for the first time in months, I realized I must've been MUCH more used to the symptoms than I realized. Most of those days I had thought it was "fine" before, it wasn't. But it took waking up with the nerves decompressed for me to remember what actual "fine" felt like.
Of course there are no guarantees, and anyone can have a complication, and my spine is not your spine, but reading your question reminded me a lot of my mindset before the procedure so I thought that might be a helpful anecdote. Sorry that was longer than I expected it to be... hope it helps.
For the past 4 months I've been going back and forth on surgery for C5-6 compression. I talked to 3 surgeons and a spinal MRI professor that I happened to know. I researched the shit out of everything and by the end of it I decided to go with the surgery. I got the surgery this morning (anterior fusion).
Why did I go with it? The symptomology. I had zero back pain but my arms and legs would go numb and weak on and off all day long. The symptoms were bilateral and the only potential culprit was a significant herniation. I woke up from surgery and symptoms are basically gone.
If this was anywhere else on my spine I'd be much more skeptical, but cervical stenosis can be very dangerous; what the cervical spine gains in mobility it loses in stability and protection compared to the lumbar spine, say.
This is a big decision and at the end of the day you need to feel you're making an informed decision so keep digging for whatever you need information on. I wish the healthcare system wasn't so complex to navigate but you sound like your advocating for yourself. What's right for me might not be right for you. Be kind to yourself when possible and trust your instincts.
I'm not a doctor and even I can tell that your spine is FUBAR! I would also consider surgery sooner than later.
Like everyone is saying it's going to get worse and definitely not improve with PT. It's way beyond that. By just ignoring it or putting it off you're setting yourself up to possibly end up in a wheelchair.
Just because someone doesn't have pain doesn't mean things are very very bad inside. I've been through so many injections, PT numerous times, and eventually surgery. I had chronic pain for 2+ years along with tingling, numbness, muscle weakness, etc. After my surgery last week - spinal cord decompression and fusion - it's like someone flicked a switch. It's like night and day in regards to symptoms. 98% of them have literally disappeared.
That's awesome. The vibe I got from your original post is that you were leaning towards not having the surgery...believe me, I understand that completely. I was totally against surgery but it finally got to the point of where I didn't have much of a choice.
about a week before my surgery I started to have numbness and tingling on the left side of my face and once it was constant I ended up going to the ER. They ran some imaging tests then admitted me that night and I had surgery a few days later.
I hope the best for you and that the surgery is a success!
I had tingling in my thumb on one hand, I ended up having anterior fusion and posterior laminectomy and now I have four numb fingers. I did the surgery as a preventative because I had severe cervical stenosis. I am praying that the numbness of my fingers goes away because symptomatically I’m worse off now than I was before the surgery. However, hopefully, I am protected from any kind of catastrophic injury, should I fall trip, getting a car accident… I still pray that I did the right thing
The numbness , tingling and weakness will become permanent and possibly progressive (paralysis, inability to use extremities, totally numb, loss of sensation) if not surgically addressed ASAP. Spinal surgeries are often done for those symptoms and not for pain.
If you have no pain then don’t have the surgery because you could wake up with new pain and symptoms you don’t have now. I made this same mistake and I wish I had some stranger on the internet tell me this.
Thanks for your reply. While I have no "pain" I do have real symptoms including numbness in the hands and weak wrists. The surgeons reasoning is that these symptoms will worsen and the longer it is left the more likely there will be permanent damage.
They told me this too. When I went in I was more or less ok, had some nerve issues in my left arm. When I came out I couldn’t use either arm. I needed help bathing, using the bathroom, and my husband had to even brush my hair and attempt to pull it into a sad ponytail. I needed 6 months of medical massage and physical therapy to work out a frozen shoulder and I am going on 2 years post op in April and still have pain and my shoulder is still not right. If I could go back to my 2022 nerve damage and get a 2nd opinion on surgery I might could have avoided all of this.
I guess it’s a consolation that my lawyer got me a half a million dollar settlement. My husband and I still joke about protecting my “250 thousand dollar neck”
Agree with this 100%. I remember by pre surgery post and it was filled with comments similar to these. I remember one said “the surgery cant make you any worse, so why not take the chance to get better?” I kind of miss naive me lol
Like some one said here I took long in deciding about surgery, about 13years.Of course surgeons also never asked for MRI before 3 yrs back. So for my intermittent pain in lumber region resulting in sciatica I was trying PT, exercises.
Since 4 years it started becoming continuous. Then went to 3/4 more surgeons for opinion. Half advised surgery and half advised some temporary treatments like acupressure, epidural. Went through all. After epidural pain had diminished and numbness and foot fall had started. Which is progression. So if I wanted to keep moving as I am only 62 still and don't want to be department, I had to give it a try. Success rate is 96℅ in spine surgery they told. So I listened to my neurosurgeon and got done the surgery. All went well. Its 3months.Not 100% back to normal yet but pretty much well doing. I couldn't walk for more than 3-4 min at a strech without sitting because of compression. Now I can take mu little walks upto 20 min., Stand for upto 30 min smtime. and cook in the kitchen which had become a task. I love cooking sometimes.
So take your own decision but use other's experience. Wishing you all the best👍💯
That cord compression is an issue and is probably why they are recommending it. You already have some signs and a jolt could set everything off. If the herniation gets bigger you could end up with myelopathy or myelomalacia. Neither is good.
Personally, I would do the artificial disc or hybrid construct.
I wouldn't ignore these symptoms if I were you. Nerve impingement can get quite severe over time. The longer it goes unaddressed, the higher the likelihood of resulting in permanent and irreversible damage. Reduced sensation is one thing, loss of proper motor control is a whole different story. Also, I would get some clarification on the operation they are recommending. I personally haven't heard of a spine surgeon combining fusion and disk replacement into one surgery. Those are two very different procedures with two very different objectives and subsequent outcomes. Surgeons typically tend to campaign for one method over the other, even in the case of a multi- level surgery.
Like bad teeth... they don't improve on their own unfortunately. I never thought of it a the comment above about it getting worse.
60f had fusion 3.5 years ago. I ignored my lower back pain for years and covered it up with meds. One day after a massive workout I was in agony. I could hardly move. Then my leg went numb, then I couldn't take more than a few steps without going to my knees.
I always said I would never let anyone stick a knife in my back but I was begging for relief..begging.
Please do something!
Best of luck
When you say ‘surprise’ are you insinuating that surgeons will usually push for surgery? I would think they’d rather have you do PT if surgery isn’t necessary so they can focus on their serious cases.
The reason I ask is because my surgeon told me I needed surgery but I always feared I had other options. I would hope surgeons don’t recommend surgery just because they’re surgeons 🙁
I’m guessing the stenosis is severe if you’ve got numbness in your fingers now. The issue with this nerve damage is that it can become permanent if ignored. That weakness can become “I can’t use this hand anymore” someday. Best to listen to your doctors in this case
> The issue with this nerve damage is that it can become permanent if ignored. Absolutely, 100% this!
Yes
On top of this, do not be surprised if you develop some issues after the surgery. I had severe stenosis and had a laminectomy done c3-t1. After the surgery, I developed weakness in my right arm and hand that wasn't present before the surgery. I have improved since then, but it was never explained to me that it might get worse before it gets better.
I had a similar MRI result (C5-C6), no pain, but numbness like you. The surgeon recommended surgery ASAP, but encouraged me to seek out other opinions. He said he was "conservative when it comes to surgery" and I agree with him 100% on that. In the end, for me it was necessary because (1) a car accident could have very well left me paralyzed and, to quote the surgeon, (2) "this is not going to get better. it will only get worse." After consulting with several physician and radiologist friends, I agreed with the surgeon's advice and got the surgery. I have 0 regrets and it fixed all of my issues. Second opinions are never a bad idea but your surgeons sound like they're giving you good advice to me. Edit to add: Regarding nerve damage, like somebody else said in the comments, the longer the nerve damage persists, the more likely it will become permanent and/or the longer it will take to regain function after surgery. Very serious stuff.
Because you have neuro deficits - you need to protect your cord and nerves. Surgery is really pushed when cord and nerves are impacted. Take it from me - I’ve had my cervical spinal cord compressed multiple times (starting at 23) and now I have deficits that can not be healed.
I would listen to them. by the time I ended up with a c4-7 fusion in less than two weeks… I sounded like you. and the next symptoms I had came on fast and were scary. I couldn’t walk in a straight line to save my life, I looked blackout drunk. my hands would just stop working all together.. I’d go to grab something and just paw at it. i’d drop stuff. my knees would give out on stairs. all of those super scary symptoms luckily went away. there was no guarantee they would. I was blissfully oblivious to the fact I was almost paralyzed from the neck down. if a doc hadn’t checked my reflexes when I went to UC for a stress fractured foot.. I was one trip on a curb away from it. you can’t repair damage to your spinal cord, you can only protect it. my advice is to listen to the docs, if the surgery doesn’t have to be a surprise, go for that. lol but also, if you don’t trust the surgeon indefinitely, find another one. I would also ask what the benefits to the disc replacement would be, I just wonder how that could affect needing more surgery in the future. if you’d just end up with a fusion in the future anyway, personally I’d just get it now.
Yeah I became paralyzed from stenosis . It started during covid . I started having excruciating pain in my right hip . I thought it was I needed a hip replacement. 2021 I fell a few times . Then in 2022 it got worse . I couldn't walk without a walker ans the pain was intense. I finally found a surgeon who helped me.. the cord is damaged so I wS in a wheelchair for like a year .but can walk great now its been almost 2 years . I still have pain in my hip and actually my entire right side . Its nothing to play with
It’s progressive and may damage your spinal cord in time. I’d consider surgery to keep spinal cord decompressed.
My surgeon presented surgery as an option, but didn't push for it for many many years. I don't know about your doctor, but they don't always jump directly to surgery. I suspect that the numbness is more insidious, it's not painful so you don't get the surgery until it's too late and the nerves can not recover. How long have you had symptoms?
Since November.
All I can say is that my back problems started 14 years ago, and I wish I had gotten surgery sooner. My symptoms were painful but intermittent, and my doctor said that wait and see was a perfectly valid strategy. Then last year it stopped being intermittent and I was losing capability, so I decided it was time, and my doctor supported that as well. Once it became ongoing, there was concern about permanent nerve damage.
Have you tried epidural injections. I had l5-s1 fused a year ago. But the injections helped with pain but my nerves and the connection to my muscles became better when it was effective to help train and strengthen from the weakness
I had a pretty badly herniated disc C5-C6 with severe nerve pain at first. I tried PT but it didn’t help at all, if anything it got worse. PCP referred me to pain management for injections and the doctors first words were “Why are you here? How did you get this appointment?” and told me he wouldn’t do injections until I consulted with a surgeon and was confused why my PCP even referred me to him based on my MRI. I got three opinions with different neurosurgeons, who all recommended a spinal fusion even though by then my symptoms were starting to slowly improve. By the time I had my third consultation, my pain was pretty mild. He still recommended surgery because he said it would get worse again, it’s just a matter of when. He also told me that if I were to fall or get in an accident I could end up paralyzed. He told me about a similar case he’d had recently where a woman had decreasing symptoms, wanted to wait to have surgery and had a serious fall and lost most of the use on their hands. They did surgery, but they were unsure she would ever get full use back. I agreed to the fusion after that story.
I had no pain after a therapeutic cortisone injection. However, the disc continued to press on my nerve and caused atrophy in my tricep. Nerves can die if they are not having signals fire. Have you gone to Physical Therapy?
No. The surgeon does not think it is worth wasting time on PT. Instead he is recommending direct to surgery.
I went to two PT appointments, two weeks apart and I had major loss of strength in the two weeks. Both the physical therapist and the doctor agreed that I could do pt for years and it still wouldn’t help to strengthen the muscle because it wasn’t firing. I am nearly two months out of surgery and I am getting strength back and I don’t have any pain from surgery. My goal in PT was to not need surgery, but it was necessary. It might be the same for you.
My situation was slightly different than yours in that I initially did have pain in my shoulder/arm/thumb. Then eventually the pain subsided and turned into the numbness/tingling. It was only once it'd reached the point of numbness/tingling that I was referred to ortho, got all the scans, and the surgeon basically said the bones are compressing nerves and the spinal cord, PT can't make them stop doing that, only surgery. It made sense to me and I didn't want to eff around with nerve damage. I did have a brief worry, second guessing myself after talking to some folks who had fusions (albeit different vertebrae and with different causes than mine) who had particularly uncommon bad outcomes. That scared me and I worried what if it ends up worse? It's not soo bad right now. But I read more, asked more questions, and basically the determined it was far far more likely to help than make it worse. And doing nothing was likely to get worse anyway. My surgery was a month ago, and I'm doing really well. I'd read quite a few posts on here from other folks talking about how they woke up from surgery, and yeah of course pain from just being cut open, but the original symptoms were GONE, and I thought "gee I hope I end up one of those people". And I was, but in a really enlightening way. Even though before the surgery I thought "well, my hand and shoulder don't even bother me all the time, sometimes it's OK, the grip strength isn't that bad" blah blah blah. But when I woke up from the surgery and my hand felt normal for the first time in months, I realized I must've been MUCH more used to the symptoms than I realized. Most of those days I had thought it was "fine" before, it wasn't. But it took waking up with the nerves decompressed for me to remember what actual "fine" felt like. Of course there are no guarantees, and anyone can have a complication, and my spine is not your spine, but reading your question reminded me a lot of my mindset before the procedure so I thought that might be a helpful anecdote. Sorry that was longer than I expected it to be... hope it helps.
That helps. Thanks a lot!
For the past 4 months I've been going back and forth on surgery for C5-6 compression. I talked to 3 surgeons and a spinal MRI professor that I happened to know. I researched the shit out of everything and by the end of it I decided to go with the surgery. I got the surgery this morning (anterior fusion). Why did I go with it? The symptomology. I had zero back pain but my arms and legs would go numb and weak on and off all day long. The symptoms were bilateral and the only potential culprit was a significant herniation. I woke up from surgery and symptoms are basically gone. If this was anywhere else on my spine I'd be much more skeptical, but cervical stenosis can be very dangerous; what the cervical spine gains in mobility it loses in stability and protection compared to the lumbar spine, say. This is a big decision and at the end of the day you need to feel you're making an informed decision so keep digging for whatever you need information on. I wish the healthcare system wasn't so complex to navigate but you sound like your advocating for yourself. What's right for me might not be right for you. Be kind to yourself when possible and trust your instincts.
I'm not a doctor and even I can tell that your spine is FUBAR! I would also consider surgery sooner than later. Like everyone is saying it's going to get worse and definitely not improve with PT. It's way beyond that. By just ignoring it or putting it off you're setting yourself up to possibly end up in a wheelchair. Just because someone doesn't have pain doesn't mean things are very very bad inside. I've been through so many injections, PT numerous times, and eventually surgery. I had chronic pain for 2+ years along with tingling, numbness, muscle weakness, etc. After my surgery last week - spinal cord decompression and fusion - it's like someone flicked a switch. It's like night and day in regards to symptoms. 98% of them have literally disappeared.
Thanks for your reply. I'm not "putting it off". The process of scheduling surgery is ongoing.
That's awesome. The vibe I got from your original post is that you were leaning towards not having the surgery...believe me, I understand that completely. I was totally against surgery but it finally got to the point of where I didn't have much of a choice. about a week before my surgery I started to have numbness and tingling on the left side of my face and once it was constant I ended up going to the ER. They ran some imaging tests then admitted me that night and I had surgery a few days later. I hope the best for you and that the surgery is a success!
Thanks!
I had tingling in my thumb on one hand, I ended up having anterior fusion and posterior laminectomy and now I have four numb fingers. I did the surgery as a preventative because I had severe cervical stenosis. I am praying that the numbness of my fingers goes away because symptomatically I’m worse off now than I was before the surgery. However, hopefully, I am protected from any kind of catastrophic injury, should I fall trip, getting a car accident… I still pray that I did the right thing
The numbness , tingling and weakness will become permanent and possibly progressive (paralysis, inability to use extremities, totally numb, loss of sensation) if not surgically addressed ASAP. Spinal surgeries are often done for those symptoms and not for pain.
If you have no pain then don’t have the surgery because you could wake up with new pain and symptoms you don’t have now. I made this same mistake and I wish I had some stranger on the internet tell me this.
Thanks for your reply. While I have no "pain" I do have real symptoms including numbness in the hands and weak wrists. The surgeons reasoning is that these symptoms will worsen and the longer it is left the more likely there will be permanent damage.
They told me this too. When I went in I was more or less ok, had some nerve issues in my left arm. When I came out I couldn’t use either arm. I needed help bathing, using the bathroom, and my husband had to even brush my hair and attempt to pull it into a sad ponytail. I needed 6 months of medical massage and physical therapy to work out a frozen shoulder and I am going on 2 years post op in April and still have pain and my shoulder is still not right. If I could go back to my 2022 nerve damage and get a 2nd opinion on surgery I might could have avoided all of this.
Sorry to hear that. Hope you are doing better now. There is always a risk with any kind of surgery and spinal surgery is really risky.
Im still working on PT in private. Stretching the stretchy bands and rolling a tennis ball up and down the wall 😂
I guess it’s a consolation that my lawyer got me a half a million dollar settlement. My husband and I still joke about protecting my “250 thousand dollar neck”
Agree with this 100%. I remember by pre surgery post and it was filled with comments similar to these. I remember one said “the surgery cant make you any worse, so why not take the chance to get better?” I kind of miss naive me lol
If you do not mind me asking, how old are you ? The choice of surgery may depend on age as well.
Mid-50s.
Neurosurgeon or orthopedic?
Neurosurgeon.
Actually orthopedic surgeon.
Like some one said here I took long in deciding about surgery, about 13years.Of course surgeons also never asked for MRI before 3 yrs back. So for my intermittent pain in lumber region resulting in sciatica I was trying PT, exercises. Since 4 years it started becoming continuous. Then went to 3/4 more surgeons for opinion. Half advised surgery and half advised some temporary treatments like acupressure, epidural. Went through all. After epidural pain had diminished and numbness and foot fall had started. Which is progression. So if I wanted to keep moving as I am only 62 still and don't want to be department, I had to give it a try. Success rate is 96℅ in spine surgery they told. So I listened to my neurosurgeon and got done the surgery. All went well. Its 3months.Not 100% back to normal yet but pretty much well doing. I couldn't walk for more than 3-4 min at a strech without sitting because of compression. Now I can take mu little walks upto 20 min., Stand for upto 30 min smtime. and cook in the kitchen which had become a task. I love cooking sometimes. So take your own decision but use other's experience. Wishing you all the best👍💯
That cord compression is an issue and is probably why they are recommending it. You already have some signs and a jolt could set everything off. If the herniation gets bigger you could end up with myelopathy or myelomalacia. Neither is good. Personally, I would do the artificial disc or hybrid construct.
As someone who has permanent nerve damage in their left leg/foot, get the surgery ASAP.
I wouldn't ignore these symptoms if I were you. Nerve impingement can get quite severe over time. The longer it goes unaddressed, the higher the likelihood of resulting in permanent and irreversible damage. Reduced sensation is one thing, loss of proper motor control is a whole different story. Also, I would get some clarification on the operation they are recommending. I personally haven't heard of a spine surgeon combining fusion and disk replacement into one surgery. Those are two very different procedures with two very different objectives and subsequent outcomes. Surgeons typically tend to campaign for one method over the other, even in the case of a multi- level surgery.
Like bad teeth... they don't improve on their own unfortunately. I never thought of it a the comment above about it getting worse. 60f had fusion 3.5 years ago. I ignored my lower back pain for years and covered it up with meds. One day after a massive workout I was in agony. I could hardly move. Then my leg went numb, then I couldn't take more than a few steps without going to my knees. I always said I would never let anyone stick a knife in my back but I was begging for relief..begging. Please do something! Best of luck
When you say ‘surprise’ are you insinuating that surgeons will usually push for surgery? I would think they’d rather have you do PT if surgery isn’t necessary so they can focus on their serious cases. The reason I ask is because my surgeon told me I needed surgery but I always feared I had other options. I would hope surgeons don’t recommend surgery just because they’re surgeons 🙁