07/31/2026
I feel... I dont even know how to feel right now.
Gaslit? By myself... ?
I think I may have spent the last several years blaming the wrong body part. 🤦♀️
A few years ago I had a microdiscectomy because a herniated disc was compressing my sciatic nerve. That's when my MRI showed just how messed up my lower back really is.
My surgeon told me then, "At some point, you're going to need an L5/S1 fusion." And basically told me that him and I will be seeing a lot of each other for the rest of life. My back is effed, to put it bluntly.
Ever since that conversation, I've just assumed the pain that keeps dropping me to the floor and rendering me useless for days was coming from that level of my spine.
A little over a year ago I was in a lot of pain and went back to him to see what we could do. He said he wanted to put it off but he would do it if he HAD to... but lets try some injections first. The injections didnt work, but i didnt follow up with him because I also wanted to try to put off the surgery.
Mom and Dad have reached the point where they're basically begging me to just have the surgery. But its not a quick and easy microdiscectomy like the last one.
A fusion is a pretty big and gnarly surgery. Days in the hospital. Months and months of physical therapy. Up to a year until youre "back to normal." And like 50% of the time it doesn't work or makes people worse. Truthfully, I'm scared as hell to do it, even though I know I cant go on like this.
So today I asked ChatGPT, "At what point do you KNOW you need an L5/S1 fusion?"
It asked me what my symptoms were. I explained where my pain is (shown in red on the picture) and how when its really bad I cannot put any weight on that left leg.
Its response was basically...
"Ummm... hey dummy... those aren't really L5/S1 fusion symptoms. If those are your main complaints, you probably shouldn't get that surgery. It sounds a lot more like your sacroiliac (SI) joint."
EXCUSE ME?!
I've spent years assuming all this pain was coming from my spine when it might actually be my SI joint causing most of the misery.
I'm definitely not diagnosing myself or taking AI advice over my doctor's. But it did make me realize I may have been connecting dots that don't necessarily go together. Looks like I need to have another conversation with my doctor.
The more I research it, my symptoms definitely align more with SI dysfunction than they do L5/S1.
And the good news... if it is, in fact, an SI issue, the surgery to fix that is minimally invasive. That sounds way better than a big gnarly spine surgery!
Has anyone here dealt with SI joint dysfunction? Did it feel like lower back pain that could drop you to the floor at any given moment?
