Until surgery?
Question:
Answers:
I think that physical therapy, and possibly a back brace may be helpful with the pain. I would also suggest seeing if your doctor has any other suggestions to help with the pain or anything. I'm sorry that you have to wait so long for surgery, I had to wait 4 months to get into my surgery because my doctor was in Texas for a month, and then we had to try to get our insurance company to pay for the surgery, and I had some other delays like that so I know what it's like to wait for surgery! Don't worry about if any kids or anybody says anything about how you limp when you walk, it's OK you are in pain, and there is a reason for it. If anybody asks you why you are limping just try to best explain why, and hopefully they will understand, but teenagers can be hard on other teens so if they are being unkind just don't listen. I'm 15 and have gotten a chronic nerve condition which I've had 5 surgeries to try to correct it in the past year and a half. I've had many kids at school say things to me, and I've learned to just get over it, and have learned to stick with my true friends and the kids who don't give me a hard time about my pain etc. Good luck until your surgery!
Physical therapy can definitely help. You have to make sure that you bend your back backwards as little as possible. What you have is spondylolythesis, which means that your vertebrae in your back has slipped forward some and is pushing on nerve roots. Everytime you bend backwards you can aggravate the situation. PT will help you be strengthening the muscles in your core to take some stress off of the area. Also, a brace that limits the motion in your low back would help some.
You MIGHT need to avoid bending backwards...but if you have a very mild spondylolisthesis and your symptoms in your leg abolish with the extended position, this might actually be encouraged as the problem could be potentially coming from a disc and the spondylolisthesis may be coincidental. (Although I'm guessing that it is a signficant spondylolisthesis if they are already planning surgery).
To say the very least, even if your spodylo is the source of your problem, PT would be of benefit even if you are going in for surgery at a later date. The primary goal of the treatment would probably be to show you a home exercise program to make your core muscles as strong as possible before the surgery. The stronger you are going into it, the better off you will probably be. There might not be a whole lot that can be done with the limp if the spondylo is the main reason until you have surgery...but best to be assessed by a PT.
Good luck.
More Questions & Answers...