@mikeyp87 It sounds like your report said to do physical therapy and get an orthopedic spine evaluation and you were going to let your doctor know who you wanted to see. That record is 2 years old. Did you follow up with a spine surgeon for an opinion? If you have not, I would recommend that you do.

Likely they will order new MRI imaging because a lot can change in 2 years. You may have bone spurs growing next to the herniated discs and I saw mine double in size on my MRI in just 9 months. Physical therapy will help your condition, but at a certain point you'll stop progressing from the spine issues. I would not recommend a chiropractor manipulation of your spine. If you have a disc osteophyte complex (disc + bone spurs) in contact with your spinal cord, that can do damage when suddenly something is forced to change position, and you need current imaging to know the extent of it. A physical therapist or chiropractor should not be treating your spine if they don't know the current condition of your spine. You could also have some instability where one vertebrae will slip past another one which will effectively make the spinal canal smaller and anything that could be in contact with the spinal cord will press further toward it. I had that situation with 2mm of slipping in my collapsed disc and it affected my walking ability. I had an uneven gait when the alignment slipped, and when my therapist realigned things gently with muscle contractions (not spine manipulations), then I walked normally again. I did have muscle loss in my shoulders and arms and was loosing coordination because of spinal cord compression and lost about half of my muscle. Since spine surgery 4 years ago, I have regained muscle, but not all that I lost. My arms lost their coordination and strength and surgery gave that back to me. I would have done this surgery a lot sooner, but I spent 2 years looking for a surgeon willing to help me. I'll post my patient story below. I also had pain all over my body from cord compression. I did not have any issues at the nerve roots.

You should look for a good surgeon now. Some spine surgeons do not want to work on the upper levels at C3/C4 or above, so you need a very skilled surgeon and it would be a waste of your time to chase doctors who might back out of helping you. If you can be seen at Mayo that would be my recommendation, and certainly you can find a lot of medical talent there. I was turned down by 5 local surgeons who were capable of fixing my spine issues, but they didn't understand my symptoms and refused to help, and I came to Mayo and got the help I needed. You need to advocate for yourself and you don't want to end up with emergency surgery and have to accept the surgeon on call for where ever you are. They could be good, but maybe not as good as they should be and it's better if you can choose the procedure that you think is best. You want a surgeon who only does spine surgery. Both orthopedic and neurosurgeons do spine surgery. If there is no fluid space left around your spinal cord, you would be at increased risk of paralysis if you get injured in a fall or car accident. The spinal cord injuries can be permanent. This is why you need to know your status and stay in charge of this decision. Let me know if I can answer any questions.

Are you employed by Mayo Clinic?