cdakiter wrote: But the other day he mentioned if things go well maybe.....
Scott
There are various things you can try before going under the knife.
The "if things go well" part is what you have to worry about.
Any vertebra fusion will put a lot of stress on the disks above and below.
Do some reaseach into post surgery results and adverse effects.
You would be suprised at how ineffective surgery can be.
I looked into surgery for a friend and I found reaserch that indicated that
other forms of therapy are just as effective and with less risks as well as
avoiding fusion that causes problems above and below.
I had a lower back problem after a car accident... (rear ended at a pay toll booth).
I was scheduled for surgery... I was told it would get far far worse if I did yoga and other therapies.
Well 25 years later I still have to see this threatened worsening... actually no problem at all.
What solved the problem was building core strenght and that was done without doing any crunches or any excercises that put pressure on the back.
A vegetarian diet or even better a vegan diet helps too.
This may sound a bit wacky, but it is not.
Meat is not produced in a natural manner. The animals are bread to be as tender as possible and
easier to butcher. Hormones and chemicals are used to reduce skeletal strenght to make it
easier to break joints apart. Have you ever wondered where all these ACL and torn rotator cuff injury increases come from. The additives end up in your body and weaken your structure.
Try inversion tables, light traction enhanced exercise, yoga (with a very good personal instructor...best if they are really old and none of this BS American style Power Yoga with airconditioning... slow intense yoga in a hot/warm room).
Traction enhanced excersise lets you increase spinal and support muscle strenght without putting
pressure on the disk.
Both my Father and Brother are (father was) back specialists. Very rearly would they let patients go for surgery.
As for running for training... if you have any back, neck or knee problems DON'T DO IT.
Running is one of the worst forms of training..... endless repetitive impact.
Bike riding with clip in shoes is the best you can do. Add yoga to that and your set.
With yoga start slowly and don't rush into flexing as much as the rest of the class.
DMSO is also helpfull in treating disk problems. DMSO is MSM with Oxygen attached.
It is readily absobed through the skin. Once absobed it breaks down into MSM and Oxygen.
The Oxygen hyper oxygenated the area and the MSM is the building block of cartilage collegen etc. I used it very sucessfully in curing a damaged rotator cuff.
I was told I needed surgery of the rotator cuff too. I opted against it.
Think about it. Don't think of the disk as an inert object that can't be "trianed or developed".
Now all this said there are cases where surgery if the way to go, but don't go for it without trying
the rest. Ther is massive over prescription of spinal surgery...after all it is very profitable.