We all sympathize with your experiences with surgeons.
Surgery does seem to attract a certain personality
type. Fortunately, not all of them are like that.
(just too many are.)

Anyway, be very grateful for a surgeon who knows his
limits and refuses to use you as his guinea pig. One
of our members who had the PS surgery was not as
fortunate as you and had terrible consequences.

Jamie- I just checked my mail & read your last
posting. I am so sad you went through an unnecessary
and unhelpful disc-decompression, which has only
inflamed the sciatic nerve more. As one of your
members once said "if you go to a surgeon, you are
likely to be cut". As a nation, we have way too much
faith in surgery as a way to alleviate back pain.
Doctors have a very limited understanding of the
causes of back pain.

Despite what I said in my last posting (about you
being a good candidate), I still think the real cause
of your SI dysfunction & sciatica has not been
unidentified & treated. Yes, you have had a lot of
treatment & none of it has worked. Therefore, the
diagnosis is probably wrong. Even pinpointing where
the nerve is pinched, may not help, if it is being
caused by muscle imbalances elsewhere.

I got rid of my 16 yr. old sciatica through
myeofascial release therapy & pelvic adjustments. I'm
still out of whack in terms of pelvis position &
muscle imbalance though. My biggest problem now is not
pain but terrible night leg kicking. It is reduced by
skilled manual work in the area of lower pelvis. I'm
currently trying a PT who uses a mixture of visceral
manipulation & other extremely gentle techniques,
which alters the position of the pelvic bones.

I don't know if the visceral approach would help your
pain or not. Just in case, I'll send you the names of
some Chicago area therapists via private email. At
least, it is another non-surgical, non-traditional PT
option you can investigate.

I can only wish you the best of luck in finding the
answer to your pain. Mary



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/