While my comments might not be specifically directed to just a Laminectomy surgery, but wanted to share anyway. It has been a year since I had Laminectomy and Spinal Fusion surgery. An 11 /12 hour surgery from T-10 to S-1.

I am only logging in to encourage you to go to places like the Mayo Connect so that you can talk to real people with real experiences. One of my biggest issues was to be able to others who actually had the surgery. The doctors can only give you estimates and averages. They are human. I a good deal of my time laying in the bed because of the pain / discomfort. My neurosurgeon is one of the best and with a well known practice in a top 50 market, he did his thing and pronounced it “successful” but I am in worse shape now than when I went in a year ago. I changed to a pain management group about six from my surgery because I wanted someone to actually monitor my pain medication and help me systematically lower my doses. You would never talk to the neurosurgeon but you would call his office and request a refill and they never talked to you but would adjust the doses based upon what they felt was appropriate. You would get a periodic questionnaire which was general and would not allow you to specifically articulate how you were actually feeling and ask questions. When I asked about my progress at the one, three and six month check up I would be told “you have had major surgery and it will take a while”. Does that mean 6 months ? 9 months ? 12 months or longer ?

So excuse the excessive rhetoric, just make sure that you get other second and third opinions before having a Laminectomy / Spinal Fusion.

Hopefully you will have a successful outcome.