Medical Endeavors w/ my Herniated and Degenerative Lumbar Disc

It's not about pessimism, but about being ready for the worst. There's a slight chance that my stem cell treatment won't regenerate my spinal disc and retract the herniation. I'm hoping it will though! It would come to show that stem cells are the next step in medicine. I still have another month and a half to see if it worked or not, but, in case it doesn't, i'm already preparing my next step: SURGERY. The rule of thumb with doctors is that you have to try 6 months of conservative treatments/therapy before they consider you for surgery. Even after that, you have to decide between the different levels of invasiveness/effectiveness/recovery differences that all the options have. In my case, I'm going with the least invasive first, and if that doesn't work, with a more invasive procedure last. Here's a rundown of my treatment plan in chronological order: 1. Micro-Endoscopic Discectomy or Hydro-Endoscopic Discectomy: a minimally invasive procedure

Fortunately, for the last PRP injection, they let my sister walk into the procedure room and take pictures. To say the least, she almost fainted. She hates needles and the way they would go into my spine was terrifying for her. Regardless, she took some pretty neat pictures, albeit with an iphone. As a summary, PRP injections are used to 'fertilize' the stem cells. They increase blood flow around the disc in order to provide nutrients and a better overall environment for the stem cells. They do this because spinal discs don't have their own blood supply!  Anyways, here are the pictures!

Greetings everyone! First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who's taken the time to read my blog. It only shows the wide array of people that suffer from chronic pain in their lower back. I wish all of you the best of luck! Updates It's been a month and 7 days since my stem cell injection. Since then, I've gone back to Colorado twice for my Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) injections (call them fertilizers), 2 weeks and 4 weeks after the stem cell injection. As I've mentioned before, these serve to increase blood flow around the disc and provide nutrients for the stem cells to grow. For my last injection, I had Dr. Centeno do the procedure. We went through a lot of things, stuff that I will cover later on in the post. As for pain levels, I've had a couple of serious sciatica flare ups. They've happened during or after strenuous activities such as gardening or prolonged sitting. I've avoided these now, and the sciatica pain is gone. As of today, I have