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← Return to Spondylolisthesis L5/S1
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How are things going these days?
I was doing better for a while then felt/heard my spine shift again. The left leg seems to have no ill affects now, but the lower back aches more and the right leg only allows me to stand for a few minutes and even walking has become a limited exercise, about 10 minutes before the pain forces me to stop. I did some personal testing on my walking. If I walk below 3.2 MPH the pain will come in about 10 minutes. Between 3.2 and 3.5 I can go about a mile. Over 3.5 I can get about 2 miles before I have to stop. That was all done on a treadmill.
I have finally gotten comfortable with the idea of moving forward with surgery, even though my new surgeon was pretty frank and said that eventually I will need additional surgery, because of my back adjusting to the new distribution of support. It may be 1 or it may be 10 years, but it will happen.
I am continuing to exercise and work on my weight and core. Unless there is some vast improvement with the conservative methods I will do the surgery just after the first of the year.
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@pdhspondi2 I am wondering why there is a difference in your endurance on walking and why a faster speed buys you some more time before pain sets in? That seems to be opposite of what I would expect. What comes to my mind if you want to work on core strength is a therapeutic horse back session. There are facilities that essentially do physical therapy while you are on horseback just at a walk assisted by therapists. It may or may not be helpful to you, but it is a way to work on core strength. I own a horse and do trail riding and this helps my core strength a lot. After I had cervical spine surgery, trail riding helped me rehab because of building core strength at all the levels below my fused level, so it improved my posture and took pressure off the spine.