Degenerative disc disease & pain management

@bobbythebrain
DDD is kind of a catch-all diognosis.
" It's the name for what happens when your spinal disks begin to wear down"

There are lots of reasons that discs degenerate and without having a complete workup of her back and hips it's impossible to know where to start treating it.

Throwing pain pills at it is just covering up an underlying issue and is totally irresponsible in my opinion. My wife is on opiods so I have seen what they do.

I would go to a non-surgical spine Dr. and get a complete exam and they should order MRI's and X-rays of the Lumbar and Hips to see what may be wrong and come up with a plan.

Good luck

@bobbythebrain only speaking from my experience.
In September 2021, everything started to happen so fast in my body.
I also only had x-rays in September, The orthopedic doctor that took the x-rays .
Said there was nothing wrong with my cervical part of my body everything on my body gradually started to go numb. They did a Lumbar MRI Diagnosed with DDD. My symptoms were not going away.
I took it upon myself to research as much as I could . The answers that were coming back to me was I needed to seek out surgeon in neurology. I live in mountains of northern California , 3 excellent spine centers nearby.
I called three different surgeons office described my situation.
No response,
I took all of my information and went to the office and pretty much begged them to see me.
The doctor did see me and he said he did not have enough information to make an accurate diagnosis
He sent me downstairs to do a full MRI on my cervical thoracic and Lumbar
The cervical MRI came back with a 14 mm herniated disc bulge in my neck, that was causing SpinalMyelopathy.
The x-rays missed that.
As I have Read on some other Peoples treatment plans and their severity of their issues with neuropathy and spinal cord and DDD .
Someone has pointed out to me , on this blog “ I only need to do me “
So if I am saying anything here , that is offensive I’m very sorry this is the first time I’ve ever been on a blog.
I do believe everyone needs to take their own case history and make a decision which best fits themselves.
For me, this was all very new. I took Yoga for 25 years. I had acupuncture. I’m a hiker. I eat healthy. I thought I was doing all of the right things. I felt like this came out of nowhere.
I was extremely scared. I was going to be paralyzed.
I never had any pain in my neck. I only had symptoms in my body. My arms and hands were going numb, my feet, Felt like I was walking on glass.
Then my legs were going numb. Then my torso started to go numb.
And the x-rays came back , with nothing
Again, this is only my experience
The MRIs are what saved me
I hope your wife gets more answers it’s awesome you’re supportive of her.☺️

@jlssurplus Thank you for the informative response. Yes, I agree. She is going to a pain specialist in a few weeks, and I hope he has some answers. At her age, there is probably not a choice of surgery so we will have to go to other routes.

@bobbythebrain your wife is not too old to have spine surgery if you are considering only her age. I am 78 and had a very successful L3-S1 laminectomy and fusion 3 months ago. I am already starting to feel like myself again. An MRI will give a lot more information about her spine than a plain x-ray will. I hope you find some answers soon.

@llander1966 We are Canadians and they will probably not do surgery on someone her age. We could go down south and pay for it if that's the best way to go.

@bobbythebrain I'm so sorry, I had no idea there were any age restrictions in Canada. I am in the US and age is not an issue here. I hope you and your wife can find some answers as to why she has so much pain and that she can get some help for it. Best of luck to you both in your search.