My Back Pain Continues

In May I decided to schedule another epidural injection in my spine. The last one I had worked for about 18 months and it's been quite a while since it wore off. Walking around with a numb foot gets increasingly difficult. Between that and my osteoarthritis in my spine, I can rarely sleep. The pain in my hips and the numbness in my foot are a combination that have become unbearable.

Unfortunately, like the last time, the first injection did not work. So I went for a second one in July. That one only worked for a few months. The doctors say sometimes it takes 3 in order for it to work but for some reason I can't bring myself to do it again.  It's not a painful procedure, but I don't exactly look forward to it. It has some risk which makes it stressful.  It's not cheap either so I'm not sure I am getting the return on the investment that I had hoped for.

After some serious thought and many sleepless pain filled nights I decided to get a second opinion.  I started to research spinal surgeons. Why not get a consult? It couldn't hurt. I have a hard time doing the research.  I look through the lists of in network surgeons in my health plan and Google them.  Looking at reviews from patients seems so arbitrary.  If they give good reviews, I wonder about their standards for what qualifies as good.

My husband mentioned that a coworker's wife had a major back surgery with a doctor that she gave rave reviews.  So I asked him to find out who it was.  His name is Dr. Perlewitz and his reading his bio was pretty incredible.  He was a Medical College of WI grad with an orthopedic fellowship at Harvard. I think that was good enough for me so I made an appointment.

I made the appointment and my husband and I went together. Dr. Perlewitz did a comprehensive exam of my spine and we had a long discussion of my symptoms.  He was thorough and easy to talk to. He suggested that since my last MRI was from 3 years ago, I get another one.  After that I would make another appointment and we would discuss options based on the results of the MRI.  He stated that normally he would have 2 or 3 suggestions (physical therapy, more injections, surgery)  and we would sit down and choose a plan of action based on how I would like to proceed.  Wish me luck!