New member, DDD 4 levels, 25years old
 

Like the title says, I am 25 years old and I have been in pain for as long as I can remember, I think it started around 15years old. I have been to a lot of doctors and several surgeons but none of them want to help me. I have recently gone to texas back Institute to get a new MRI and review from a surgeon and she diagnosed me with degenerative disc disease at L5-S1, L4-L5, L3-L4, L2-L3, but she said that there is no fix for it and that I must "just live with it". I have been just dealing with it for years, but it has been getting worse and I now have nerve issues along with the pain, so I am considering an ADR surgery with Dr. Clavel in Barcelona.

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Curt,

Condolences on being here, but welcome. I can tell you that the diagnosis looks pretty sound in that you have clear DDD from L2-S1. TBI wouldn't really be able to help too much as I think 4 prodiscs on top of one another would be asking for trouble, and you are too young for a fusion. I am not going to sugar coat it - you are a challenging case given your young age and the number of discs involved, but I will say that it would definitely be a good idea to talk with Dr. Clavel and other foreign surgeons about your options as I think you would definitely have some - don't despair.

Good luck,

-Jeff

Curt,

I'm sorry that you are here. There is a lot of information on this board, so you are in good hands. Like Jeff said, check out the overseas surgeons. They can be a bit more willing to do so many levels. A lot of people have had excellent outcomes with the European facilities. Feel free to drop me a PM if you want to ask questions regarding my overseas experience.

Adr
 

Clavel, bierstedt, pimenta

Curt,

I think you are doing the right thing going overseas. I have been in pain since I was 15 too. (That is now 20 years for me). Do not wait any longer.

I am having six levels redone by Dr. Clavel next Monday.

My prognosis by American docs was a lifetime of pain and a wheelchair.

I won't sugar coat it either. Use your college fund, have your parents mortgage their house do whatever you need too do, but get to Europe to get yourself fixed. The discs above the four major ones aren't looking so great either. Likely from all the strain of the four bad ones underneath. Get this done before those get stressed even more.

Was this the result of an injury?

Sorry about your suffering...I recommend a radical, nutritional approach (like the Gerson Therapy). This can only help you regardless of your surgical choices. To what do you attribute such an advanced state of generation? What does your gut tell you (no pun intended)?

Good call Harrison! (She says as she stuffs her mouth full of kale salad).

I was wondering the same thing, about how it got that way.

Oh, and don't forget to create s spine signature Curt. It will help us help you.

MMM...kale salad. I bought some kale today to juice, but that sounds yummy!

I second what Harrison said. Eating healthy will only help you.

To retell an old story, a man had his whole C-spine reconstructed a few years back with a mix of ADRs and fusions. He was incredibly fit going into the surgery, far more than was the usual. He was photographed by a long-time medical advocate eating pizza at a restaurant several days after his surgery. The incredibly fast recovery time was attributed to his pre-surgery health. Basically, the healthier you are going in, the faster you'll get back on your feet.

On a side note, I've mentioned that Laura sees a prolotherapist regularly. Each trip includes purchasing a pound of kale salad from the local Whole Foods. I don't know which she looks forward to more, the treatment or the salad.

OK, all this kale talk is getting weird! :laugh:

I made red kale tonight for the first time in a few weeks and I didn't like it. I used another variety last time and it was yummy. I need to get smarter on super greens....since I nag you all about it so often! I usually juice it...a great way to cheat. Which varieties are more tender?

Curt, how are you dealing with the pain? Cause of all this DDD?

The cause of the DDD is unknown, I have never had any injuries or accidents, they only thing that I can think is that it is genetic (my dad has back problems as well) and up until a year or two ago I had a very physical labor job, so I think that has some to do with it as well.
As far as dealing with it, I haven't been found a pain management doctor that will take me, I have tried to get into so many that I just gave up. I did have one a few years back but he just wanted to keep doing steroid injections, and they weren't helping at all, every doctor I have seen refuses to write any scripts.

Toss with a little hemp oil (high in omega 3!), soy sauce (I just GF, reduced sodium), crack a little black pepper, sprinkle some smoked paprika and nutritional yeast on it. YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMM...

While of course, juicing is the best cheat for the straight up nutrients (still waiting on someone strong enough to lift the damn juicer to get home so I can juice!) eating the kale in a raw a form as you possibly can is always recommended. If you look at the recipe I posted above, toss the kale and let it sit for a few hours, the oil and soy sauce will soak in and wilt the kale, not only making it more tasty, but also rendering it easier to digest, and super yummy! If you don't like the cheesy taste of the nutritional yeast, omit.

Dino kale is the most tender I find, plus, it has the most nutrients, and ANDI score of 1000, which is the highest you can go.

I would quite literally eat my hat if you don't have celiac disease. (Might have to make one out of kale just in case). :laugh:

The vast bulk of us are here because of injuries. We are (IMO, wrongly) Dx'd with DDD. But that makes no sense since the other discs are just fine. It sounds like you have *true* DDD.

Logically speaking, even before I looked it up, of COURSE celiac would cause DDD. The spine, unable to absorb the nutrients it needs, when shocked, would rely heavily on the discs because the spine itself is in a weakened state. It can heal, given time, but the damage already done likely cannot be reversed.

40% of the population has the gene. The disease is genetic.

If you were here in CA, and walked into Stanford with your sympotms, I guarantee you the very first thing they would do it check you for celiac. A 25 year old with no major injuries should not have DDD. The only possible thing I can think of that could account for that is celiac disease.

I know I keep squawking about it, but statistically, one in five of us carries the gene. It is most often turned on my trauma and pain. The highest incidence of celiac is in Somalia, where one in 22 people has it.

Chances are there are way more people on here than me who have it.

Unfortunately, I find that changing their diet seems to be the last thing people want to do.

Curt,

What a terrible story.

There are a lot of things that science can't explain; like people being helped by some very unusual diets (unusual by popular American standards). Given your age (I have neckties that are older than you) I'd encourage you to consider trying some of them before submitting to spine surgery.

Something that is routinely seen with spine surgery is that the patient will do very well for a time, sometimes for 20+ years, and then begin having new problems that are thought to be caused by the surgery that fixed the original problem. At 25 you're going to have to live with your decision and the resulting unknown results/variables for a long time.

I've tried a number of therapies suggested by the "whole" and "organic" foods culture for a variety of ailments; all to no avail. However, there are long lines of people that have been helped and even cured of assorted ailments after starting such therapies. Bizzare as they might sound, I'd encourage you to try some of these therapies. This Gerson Therapy that Harrison and Lilyth both use sounds like as good a place to start experimenting as any.

Having said all of that I will go ahead and recommend a US surgeon that I know has a four level lumbar ADR patient walking around symptom free today; Jack Zigler at Texas Back Institute in Plano, TX. However, because he takes a very conservative approach, my guess is that he'll probably refuse to do surgery on you.

Best of luck, Jeff

"Nutritional therapy" is going to be very slow and have very little apparent effect. It's a great way to improve overall health and will eliminate a host of things you could have suffered from but don't because you eat well. It's going to be difficult to quantify any real improvements because you can't estimate how bad you would have been eating junk food. It's also going to have limited effect on fixing existing problems. A bone broken, for example, due to osteoporosis isn't going to heal instantly if you start avoiding gluten and address the celiac that caused the osteoporosis.

Second thought: Gearson therapy done right is an extremely demanding process. You might want to look at modifying it to fit in your life and seeing how far you can improve your diet without compromising something else. Laura started baking to help me with my apparent celiac and got so wound up in it that she wasn't sleeping enough. We had to back off and realize that trading one problem for another wasn't smart and we'd have to find effective ways to help me without hurting her.

Thank you guys for all the replies, I have never heard of either Celiac disease or of the Gerson therapy.. I will admit that I don't have a very healthy diet but I have never had any problems with weight so that probably is a large factor into my junk food eating habbits, my wife tells me all the time that I need to start eating healthy, I should probably listen to her.

Just to clarify, I have never done the Gerson therapy. I know quite a lot about it and if I came down with cancer that is what I would look at to cure it. (If raw foods didn't work first).

And Jeff, have you tried going gluten free? If gluten is your problem, no amount of "healthy" foods will help you. I was eating "healthy" before too. Organic whole wheat, organic oatmeal, organic barley...

Curt, you don't have to be overweight to be having health problems due to what you are eating. And yes, listen to your wife. Wives are usually right about what you *should* be eating. If she would like to communicate with me directly, feel free to pm me her email address. No offense, but sometimes I find it is just much faster and more efficient for the women-folk to communicate. :laugh:

And yeah, you do want to strike a balance. I knew this week was going to be demanding, so I made a huge batch of egg salad. Not 100% raw, but I have celery and green onions in the mix (probably more of that than the egg). I've still got some kale salad from last night, but I needed something a little more substantial, hence the egg salad. Oh, and a carrot, apple, turmeric, orange, lemon, pineapple juice. I'm in quite a lot of pain lately (GOD surgery can't come fast enough!), so I thought juicing a bunch of turmeric would be a good idea (VERY high in anti-inflammatory), so I juiced a bunch. Along with the other stuff. You do NOT want just the turmeric juice alone. Also the bromelaine in the pineapple is an anti-inflammatory as well.

Oh, and the number one WORST ingredient to put in your body? (Aside from High Fructose Corn Syrup - I assume everyone on the planet knows to stay away from that by now). SUGAR. I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how bad sugar is for you!

I was scared to death you were going to say bourbon.

Hahahaha!

Actually, IMO, the sugar in bourbon is FAR preferable than white refined sugar!

Sorry to see you in here so young. Everyone that mentioned the better eating habits is spot on. I'd particularly stay away from any grains/legumes period. Gluten isn't the only cause of leaky gut and celiac disease the lectins abundant in all grains/legumes (there's a contradiction to what the surgeon general recommends go figure lol) If at all posible mix in some grass fed meats and add some Omega3s to your diet. I'd say 5g a day alon with 2000 units of vitamin D. Nutrition is very complicated and when you start reading and researching you are awed by how screwed up our system is. May I say GMOs, pesticides, meats that are only fed a grain diet? Guess what all of this throws off the balance of omega 3 to omega 6s in your body and when you add insulne resistance to it alone with sleep patterns and the. Wrong type of stressors it become a time bomb. Yes the answer is in the eating habits. I don't like to call it Diet bc anything we eat is part of our diet wether it is good or bad. Lifestyle changes are in order for those of us with these types of issues. While it will not solve the problem it will make easier to tolerate. On another note it is ultimately your decision but I'd seriously consider asking overseas and at least getting opinions. Do a lot of research. Don't take any decisions lightly and specially not while you are in pain. I've learned that on this board and makes tons of sense.

I'd like to add to this that you ought to change what the word "diet" means in your vocabulary. To me, it means "the way one eats", rather than "a method of denying oneself certain types of food for a short period of time in order to reach an end goal".

And firemedix is right. Do your research. Do so much research you know more than your doctors. That way, when one of them makes some BS statement like "any disc'll do ya", you know that is probably not the best doctor for you. (Hint: Discs are not all created equal.)

taking the plunge
 

Well I have decided to take the plunge! I scheduled my 3 level (possibly 4 level, will discuss with the dr but I'm hoping for just 3) Lumbar replacement with Dr. Clavel on May 15th. I have also decided to take Lillyth's advice and as of tomorrow morning I am going gluten free.

All very good decisions mate. Good luck.