[Don Plumley]

Similar thing happened to my wife 6 years ago. Always had low-grade lower back pain, but no complaints (she's a saint). One night she had a bad cough, and ended upon the floor in pain.

Doc-in-a-box RX'd muscle relaxants, saw a Chiro friend -- then I noticed she was subtly dragging a foot. Yipes! Got an MRI, she extruded the Nucleus Pulposus (the jelly inside the jelly donut of the disc) into her spinal canal (L5-S1) and it was impinging on her spinal cord.

Plan of attack: Contacted my MD friends for referrals. Interviewed four surgeons -- one of whom we told, "You will not be asked to operate. Just review the case and let us know, if this were your daughter, would you operate." We found the technical expert that everyone knew, begged/pleaded to get into his office for an eval, and this is what he said: "It's a pretty routine procedure, almost any ortho could do the job." So I asked why he should do it. "I do only spinal surgery, do this specific procedure about 10 times a month, and this is the worst one I've seen in 12 months." Deal closed.

Beth had successful surgery, non-remarkable recovery, and is 100% physically able and pain free.

Not all surgery goes bad. But for this kind of procedure, find the technical specialist -- not just a general ortho cutter.

Good luck.