[Princess]

#9511

Hi,

Thabks for the reply. I appreciate the comment from the original poster. My antalgic position produced back pain since the twisted pelvis made me use muscles and joints that were not designed for the purposes I was using them for. My sciatica was mild or nonexistent. I am a young person, with one baby. I was studying, I was working. I was very depressed, and severely disabled. I looker pretty bad too and people often commented on the shape pf my body. I saw two very experienced surgeons and surgery was indicated because the disc prolapse was massive. The prospects of it improving naturally were quite slim because most people see improvement within three months. I did not and walking in that odd posture may have caused other health problems. I started to have knee pain. I appreciate the original poster improving naturally but I think leaning to one side is one kind of antalgia. My body had a dpuble twist. My pelvis was going right, and my chest was going left. The scoatica was no a non-issue but when I had my surgery, it had been almost a year that I had been in that position. The surgeon who operated on me was very skilled, experienced. He does many operations like this per week. I am in the UK and I had the operation done under the national health service. The NHS has many patients and this surgery is routine. I was out of the hospital within two days but even before surgery no one told me how soon my body will realign. If I had left the op too late I may have had more damage. The disc can always prolapse further.

[Princess]

#9512

Also, the body can get used to that position and the muscles you do not use shrink. There are lots of muacles involved and all of them hurt as they readjusted. I am talking about hips, thoighs, abomen, lower and upper back. You won’t even believe the muscles you use to stay upright and how much work you have to do to stay correctly aligned. After the surgery, I did not see a physio for six weeks. Here in the UK they recommend that you do some basic exercises for the first 6 weeks and then you start a programme of physiotherapy. For the first six weeks I mainly walked. I would get fatigued. Several days went like this. The muscles that come back into use do not have strength. They take time to get strong and carry your weight. My body still has spme of that list left and I certainly do not feel comfortable. My physio has dealt with many people with thia list. He says the pain and discomfort os related to the muscles readjusting and it disappears after the body relaigns. It gradually disappears but he said the list can remain for around one year. People who just have sciatic pain, they have the surgery and 90% of the time they are back to normal. I recovered from the surgery in aroind four weeks. I think with thia kind of postural problem you really have to work hard to get back into the correct posture. It doesn’t just go away. I was physically unable to stand straight. The side where the disc had prolapsed was in a huge spasm.
After the surgery, that went away, and though it has been hard at least now there is some chance I will recover. Maybe not 100% but even if I can get out and about and do normal things. I think anyone who has this antalgia should consider the surgery.

[Princess]

#9513

One more thing. I would appreciate it if the original poster can write and describe how he got over the antalgia. Even with hree months of targetted exercises I am not 100% straight. I am in my early 30, not overweight and generally healthy. I actually had to make an effort to correct my posture. I don’t think it just goes away. I guess we all have a limp or something when we have pain but real antalgia doesn’t disappear without some effort so I hope the poster can describe his journey because before I had my operation there was almost no infrmation on the internet as to how antalgoa goes away and what the process is. Everyone kind of says, it goes away. I think people who have had this for a long time and need some reassurance can do with so e more information.

[nikolaus]

#9514

@Dr. Corenman,

Indeed, i didn’t have significant motor weakness. In my worst period i couldn’t lift the left leg but it was because of pain and not because of motor weakness. That was the main reason why most doctors who examined me didn’t try to force me to proceed with surgery.

I think, at that stage, its all about tolerance to pain and need to work. Risk a surgery for faster recovery, or risk a slower recovery but with some other possible side effects too.

Both choices come with risks. But things are not as bad as they seem when you surf the internet.

[nikolaus]

#9515

Princess,

Please keep in mind that although we had some common symptoms (antalgia because of disk herniation, rotations as you describe), we can’t be sure that your body responds the same way as mine did. In fact, i had intense sciatica pain, while you had not. You had surgery, i had not. So, this is only my story. Nothing more.

So, at my worst point, i had “twisted pelvis” too, or whatever that is called. I was told that this is always the case: The muscles from the side of the herniation go into spasm. The rest of the spine has to lean on the other side in order to keep you balanced. Sometimes, the rest of the spine leans on the same side, which depends on where exactly your herniation is. So, when your torso leans to one side, the pelvis **has** to rotate to compensate. This rotation is the rule, not the exception. The pain at that point was like hell. I had pain EVERYWHERE, i couldn’t locate it. In fact, some doctors at that time offered me spine fusion because they were claiming that discectomy would only help sciatica pain and not lower back pain (while others were telling me that those who suggested fusion were idiots, as usual).

My mind was telling me that the real reason was the herniation, but they wouldn’t guarantee that the lower back pain would go way. So, that was another reason why i didn’t rush into surgery. I said, wtf, i am not going under knife if the lower back pain can remain forever. Because (PERSONAL ASSUMPTION) the surgery itself may interrupt a natural smooth realignment process of the muscles. So, what happens when you cut them? pierce them? mess them up? I had surgery in the past, for other reasons, and what i learned from that experience was that it is a bad idea to mess with something when it is on its peak. Esp when you are under pain and inflammation. Unless you absolutely absolutely absolutely know what is going on (END OF PERSONAL ASSUMPTION). I have to say that today: ALL THIS “VAGUE” PAIN IS 100% GONE (YEEE!). I mean 100%. Not 99%. Gone, completely, zero, no pain. So all this pain was the result of muscle spasms and system shock. So i believe your physio was correct on that. I also had sciatica and lower back pain. Lower back pain is gone now, and the sciatica is gone, apart from some rare tingles across the left nerve.

Some other stuff to note: i didn’t see improvement within three months. I saw minor improvement at approx 6 months. At 12 months the pain was much less, but i was in pain nevertheless and my spine was not completely aligned. The big improvement was at about 15-18 months. Maybe a year and a half later. I had knee pain too. Both knees will be out of position for a while. Its common sense. Torso leaning right, pelvis rotated left, now you have leg length differences. One of them will bear more weight. So, please, protect it. Really, its as simple as it gets. You will have all the symptoms people with scoliosis have for a while. Thats normal. Protect your neck too. I had neck pain for a while too (but not much).

Now, the muscles do shrink, its true. It took approx 2 years to be able to rotate my spine painless 360 degrees. I am serious. I managed to jog painless at approx 2y. The recovery is not a fast process. It was as slow as you can imagine.

Now, some stuff i concluded from my xp (which may be completely wrong):

Rule #1: When your spine is at the super painful scoliosis stage:
1) YOU MUST NOT WALK. It is common sense. everything is out of place. How can walking help? Your disks are seriously crushed by assymetric forces. You can only cause more damage. If you wake up one morning and you have antalgia (or whatever this is called), PLEASE STAY AT HOME. DONT RUSH TO DOCTOR. Dont walk, dont move. Call if you like, but please, dont start walking.
2) YOU MUST NOT SIT. FORGET IT. You can’t. 90 degrees on a messed up spine. Try to image what happens on the discs. So, I didn’t sit for a year. I am serious. No chair for a year. And even know, i try to not sit for more than 4h without break. I type in bed. Surf in bed. I stand, i walk, but chair, it is only for eating and working when you can’t work in some other way. Even now, when i dont feel pain at all.
3) YOU MUST NOT DRIVE. (doh, obvious, most probably you cant anyway)
4) YOU MUST NOT LET ANYONE PUT HIS HANDS ON YOUR SPINE AND “ADJUST IT”. Everyone who tried to help me (all of whom which were famous “professionals” with expensive web sites full of promises) made the things WORST. If you see a big fat herniation, then you have your answer. He can’t heal it. end of story.

Rule #2:
If you decide not to go under surgery, you must STOP ALL PAIN KILLERS. I stopped them all. Through them away. All. Just like that.

Reason of my decision: Pain killers hide the pain. If you want to heal, you need feedback from your body. If you hide the pain and try to live a normal life, you will fack up more things in your body, and you lose the opportunity to understand what is going on inside you. You have to take that feedback and learn from it.

The thing that helped most (seriously, please don’t laugh):

1. Sleeping with a pillow between your legs. Okay, people say that it does work. I start doing it, and I was thinking: “wtf am i doing, this is placebo”. BUT, within approx 2-3 months, i managed to understand the difference. At first you just put the pillow, a HUGE PILLOW, not a SMALL PILLOW, between your legs and feel like a clown. BUT, if you use the pillow a lot, slowly you will find the body position that decompresses the discs at the max. I know it, because I can now find the position easily on my body and feel the decompression. And it was not easy. It took me about 2 months to find the optimal position. And i know that during the first month i was sleeping in a non optimal way. But I believe that the healing process happens mostly during the night, so, find your optimal position, to give your body the chance to take the maximum out of your healing time.

2. WALKING. Nothing else. Just SLOW walking. Find a friend and start walking *slowly*, with no stress about “your spine”. Don’t think about how to “walk properly”, don’t think about your belly and your breath, just get quality sport shoes (ofc no heels) and walk naturally and **slowly** as your body flows. Take your time.

Thats all i did, after trying physio, swimming, alexanders, mckenzie, pilates and manual therapy. My recovery started after i stopped them all (actually you could try mckenzie exercises, which helped me a little bit too)

And, oh my, my first walks were terrible. All muscles were complaining. I was VERY stressed, because i didn’t know whether I would ever recover. People were writing on the net that it goes away, some others that it may become permanent. Some others that you need a superdoctor to give you the super secret exercises or else you are doomed forever.

Doh, i dont know. I know i don’t feel any pain now. That’s for sure. And i just walked 12k today :-)

[Princess]

#9516

Hi,

I am sure everyone here will agree that the OP has provided an excellent accoint of his experience. I wish you all the best and hope you remain pain free.
One interesting thing you mention is that you started to feel better at around the six month mark. Now I am not going to say I felt better, but I had a feeling thatvmaybe things were starting to settle down. The antalgia was still there, but I wonder if the exercises I did after the op would have helped then. After the surgery, my body was in the wrong position and Ibthen had to do the physio. Once the exercises started to work I started to realign. The question I keep asking myself is whether exercise could have helped at the time. I will jever know now. I do think doctors often push people into having surgery, but here in the UK you don’t pay for the health service (the health service is paid for via taxes), so individual surgeons have nothing to gain by suggesting surgery when it is not necessary. I saw two very reputable surgeons and they both suggested surgery. They did so in part because I was unable to cope living the way I was. I was unable to work. I was unable to study or go out. The disc herniation was so large it could have gotten worse, causing nerve damage. If you had what I had you are a brave person to have waited it out. My life had effectively ended. I was not a happy bunny. I just couldn’t have waited so long to recover. I do agree, however, that natural recovery is probably much smoother. The herniation gradually decreases in size and youbslowly start to realign as much as your body allows. With surgery, you wake up, and problem is gone, and now your body has to deal with straightening out immediately. Naturally it would have been slow because as the herniation decreased, the alignment would have followed. With the prolapse gone, the body reacts by trying to move normally all of a sudden but all the shrunken muscles etc are bot ready yet.
I am happy for the thread starter and his recovery, but I also hope, now that I have had surgery, I continue to recover. I think even without surgery it would have been harder. I also think since I had to do a lot of work to straighten out, natural recovery would have been similar. Before surgery I had a lot of back pain because walking caused a lot of stress to joints and muscles on the lower back. I don’t know if surgery was the answer but I can tell you there has been a significant change. Maybe this change would have occurred naturally but I was disabled. I wqs unable to go out. I was unable to do most things. The baby requires so much attention and care. Everyday there are medical appointments, errands to run, and things come up out of the blue. I was stuck at home. The idea of getting on a train and going to a London park seemed out of the question. I just wasn’t mobile enough. After surgery, my walking jas improved. I have not really gone out but I know soon I will be able to.
I would like to ask Nikaulaus whether he did any exercises to get rid of the antalgia? My rib cage is still a little crushed because I had been leaning to one side for so long.
I would also like to ask the good Doctor Corenman to offer his thoughts on long term health damage if antalgia is not addressed. For instance, if someone chooses not to have surgery and is not seeing natural recovery, is there a chance that sich a person will develop other health problems. I also had neck and knee pain. I do wonder if things did not improve and the postural changes that were causing the problem were not correcte, could things like long term knee misalignment cause permanent damage to the knee? If that is the case, then perhaps antalgia without sciatica is still a good reason to have surgery especially if it is bot showing signs of improvement within a year or so.
I think my decision was based on the fear it could get worse and I iust couldn’t live the way I was living. I was an active person with responsibilities and my whole life ahead of me. Without any certainty of natural improvement (which my surgeons said had no real chance of improving without surgery), I felt I had no choice. Almost everyone I spoke to said it was a good idea. I knew it will not be an instant fix. The body doesn’t just swing back. Even the OP here has suggested that it took him a very long time to heal. I would like to ask him what hos life was like at the time, whether he expected to improve, and how he was able to afford to consider a long term recovery without knowing if he will ever get better, be able to work and live a normal life? I never felt any real improvement and as such I did not have faith I will get better.

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