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Posted by ohaya
Message 1 in thread From: (ohaya@yahoo.com)
Subject: - Type of Physician? Was [Re: Can I whine?]
Newsgroups: alt.support.arthritis
Date: 2000-11-03 08:50:08 PST
Hi Linda (and others on this NG),
I'd had pain in my tailbone area, and numbness/tingling in my right
leg/foot area for awhile now, and I finally went to see our family
doctor about it several weeks ago. He did X-rays and recommended an
MRI, which I got done about 2 weeks ago, and what came back was that
there was "stenosis". They also found some herniated disks
and "arachnoid cysts". I was referred to a couple of "spine
specialists", and I finally got in to see one (he was an "orthopedic
surgeon") this morning.
He looked at the MRIs, and said that a "channel" (sorry, I'm not
technical) was closed off almost completely.
He said that a steroid shot might provide some temporary relief) but he
didn't think physical therapy would help. He said that I could either
leave it alone, or have surgery done to remove a disk(?)?
Anyway, I'm looking for thoughts about this.
I'm not really thrilled about the idea of surgery, but he said that he
had done "1000s" of these operations, and that the surgery was helpful
in about 85% of his cases.
Also, BTW, one of the things that I'm puzzled about is that I've seen
posts in this NG indicating that "neurosurgeons" rather
than "orthopedic surgeons" deal with this kind of problem? Am I seeing
the wrong kind of doctor?
Any thoughts/cautions, etc. would be greatly appreciated...
P.S. I'm a 52-year old male.
