Guest guest Posted May 23, 1999 Report Share Posted May 23, 1999 Is there a consensus out there on medicate vs operate? I need to make up my mind on whether or not to have decompression surgery in the next month. I have 6-8mm herniation with no Syrinx. There seem to be two camps out there. One is conservative and says medicate, don't operate. The other camp is a little more aggressive and recommends surgery to alleviate and hopefully stop the progression. Do some people believe the sooner you operate the better off you are? The NSGs that I have seen in San Francisco have been on the conservative medicating side. In my gut I didn't feel completely comfortable with this approach. I feel that I am slowly getting worse and that it might make more sense to alleviate the pressure to get some relief from all these symptoms. Right now I can't work and I take a lot of medications and my understanding is that I will just continue to get worse. In this case when to you get to the point when it is time to have surgery? I flew to LA to see Dr. Batzdorf and he feels that I would benefit from surgery and recommended it, but he didn't day " you have to have it. " He understandably is very conservative on saying what surgery would fix or improve. He gave me a better then 50% chance for getting my headaches to improve. No guarantees on the neuropathy, choking, voice hoarseness, etc. What symptoms have improved or gone away with people that have had the decompression surgery ? I will see Dr. Peacock at UCSF, a former colleague of Dr. Batzdorf, for a final opinion on June 14th. If Dr. Peacock agrees with Dr. Batzdorf I will probably have the surgery with Dr. Peacock. I usually trust my gut feeling and my gut feeling is that I need the surgery. But saying yes is going to be a hard thing to do. Sorry for the long rambling letter, but I think I need to hear that I am on the right track. Thanks! Crow crow99@... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: /group/chiari - Simplifying group communications Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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