Thanks for the reply!
I'm not sure how to assess 'worse' or 'better': My symptoms may be slowly getting better after the epidural.
I actually spent much of the last week looking at alternative treatments. Prolotherapy sounds interesting, but there seem to be a few different protocols:
One school of thought is to treat the ligaments supporting the back, and I might look more into this. Perhaps that could keep my discs in better shape if they had better support.
Another approach is to inject into the disc directly: When I mentioned this to the surgeon I spoke with last week, he was shocked. I guess for many stem cell experiments on animals, all they need to do to initiate disc degeneration is to place a needle in the disc, and remove it.
Likewise, for stem cell treatments that makes me a little nervous. Of course, if there was true regeneration that could be expected, that should outweigh the injection damage. But I'm having a tough time finding any studies done on humans for a treatment with a solid track record behind it.
Even googling extensively for stem cells and disc regeneration, the best I could find was a MRI of a herniation that abated somewhat after stem cell injection, but the mri did not look as though the disc "regenerated" to me: The volume looked the same. The herniation was reduced, but it would seem that's much more likely due to the body's natural reabsorption of the disc material than from the stem cells?
More stem cell disc successes… | Regenexx™
Adult Stem Cell Procedure to Treat Back Pain looks like one of the more promising sites I've found, but even then, there is next to nothing listed about the results that one should expect from the treatment.
Do you happen to know of any posts from this forum, or other resources where someone has a before/after MRI of a regenerated disc thanks to stem cell therapy? I figure I'll at least wait until the current wave of clinical trials has reportable results, but I'd love to see some hopeful signs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by annapurna
1) You're on the right track for making the decision about surgical options. You should also consider how fast you're getting worse. At some point the problems of conservative care will outweigh the risks of surgery in your estimation. That's when surgery is reasonable. Unfortunately, no one can tell you when that point is as it's mostly based on how you perceive risk.
2) ADR can be done after microdisectomy.
I would suggest that you start actively looking at stem cell or prolotherapy type conservative care options right now as they really only work as early stage interventions. Once the disk start showing advanced DDD, they really can't reverse things. You don't have to use them, but you should be researching them now so you know what's out there and what they could offer you.
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