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Hi there. This is Jonathan Ginsberg and today I'd like to talk to you about
a condition, a medical condition called Failed Back Syndrome. And I've had
several Failed Back Syndrome cases of the last few months, a few weeks
actually and it just occurred to me that this would be something that would
be interesting to talk about because again becoming more prevalent for
number of reasons and I wanted you to know how I approach these cases.
So firstly, to just confirm the definition if you're not sure what I'm
talking about, essentially a Failed Back Syndrome is a situation where you
may have undergone back surgery. It could be a fusion, it could be a
microdiscectomy and the surgery initially resulted in a reduction in your
pain. Maybe it increased your mobility, but after six, eight, ten months
you start to notice that scar tissue is forming, arthritis is coming in and
that your pain level is gradually beginning to increase again. To the point
where within a year, again nine months to a year, your level of pain is
maybe a little different than what it was prior to the surgery but it's no
less debilitating and bothersome.
You go to the doctor and the matter what they do in terms of physical
therapy or adjustments of the hardware, if they can do that, it doesn't
really seem to help. And so a lot of times people with Failed Back Syndrome
find themselves on long-term pain management and again, they're not a whole
lot better off than they were before, and again the pain can be different
but it may be no less debilitating.
A lot of times the reason why Failed Back Syndrome happens is that my
clients simply don't have the money for an appropriate follow-up. Normally
when you have back surgery, the ideal situation would be to undergo
physical therapy where your reach and then your muscles, you develop
different muscles, different core muscles for example and it really helps
you learn to lift things differently, move differently to maintain your
flexibility. But if you don't have the money for that and you don't have a
good at home program where he able to keep up with that then arthritis will
set in and once a year goes by its very difficult to get that mobility
back.
A lot of times second surgeries are not an option, surgeons are reluctant
to perform a second surgery and someone who did not have a good result the
first time and sometimes realize that some people just naturally form scar
tissue and the naturally get arthritis or osteophytes in their spines. And
so your doctor may be reluctant to operate on you again, you may not have
insurance anymore, so for whatever reason I see people a year or two years
after their initial surgery and they come back and they're just really not
in a position to work and do much of anything. They're in excruciating
pain, they have very limited movement and they're basically on long term
pain management.
The complications that I've seen typically would be which you will call
decompensation from work and that basically means that you've lost your
muscle tone in the core muscles that helps support your back. You could be
depressed from being in a chronic pain management situation and that's very
common. You can find yourself dependent on narcotic pain medication and
that also can lead to some complications where you're not able to function
reliably in a work setting because you've got all of this pain medications
you're taking and the pain medications themselves have side effects such as
constipation, they can engage in mood swings and so forth. And again
depression can arise from just being in that situation.
Usually if it's been a year or two after surgery has not been successful
and your experience in some of these complications, it's very, very hard to
snap back from that. Even if you do get another surgery it doesn't say that
you're going to get better and a lot of times what you'll find is the
doctor will kind of throw his hands up and say this is a Failed Back
Syndrome case and try to put somebody on long-term pain management. A lot
of times they and up with me applying for Social Security Disability which
ideally is not where you want to be, but it's better than nothing.
Now obviously Social Security is not going to resolve all of your problems
but it does do a few things for you. Specifically give you some access to
income so you can live with a little bit of dignity. It can give you access
to Medicare after a certain amount of time has passed, 25 months I believe
from the date of your first payment, and I think most importantly in a lot
of ways Social Security Disability will validate what you've been through.
If you've gone through a surgery that didn't work really well, you're not
able to work, your lifestyle has probably changed. If you're married, your
spouse may be getting very frustrated, your relatives may not understand
what's going on and getting on Social Security Disability and a lot of ways
validates that you've had a third-party, an objective third-party look at
your situation critically and decide that yes you meet the requirements for
Social Security Disability. So in that sense that validation can be very,
very helpful.
I think the key to success if you've got a Failed Back situation would be,
these are things that you really need to do to make their case work better,
one is you need to be compliant with your medical treatment and that means
that even if it doesn't seem like your doctors helping you, continue to go
to the doctor. Do what the doctor says, try the medications, try different
physical therapy, whatever you can do. Just show that you're making a real
effort to try to get back to work and to get better, so that's one really
important factor the judge is going to look at.
A second thing is you want to really have a positive attitude as much as
possible and what I mean by that is when you go to the doctor don't go in
with the idea you know I know I'm disabled for the rest of my life and I'm
terrible and I need more pain medication. Go in with an idea and tell your
doctor that you'd like to do what you can to get better and try to ask for
encouragement and show that you're not looking for pain medication
handouts. You really want to show the right attitude because that sort of
thing ends up in your medical record and you want the doctor to describe
you as a person who is motivated to get better and is not looking for
narcotic pain medications and is really trying to improve a lot in life.
And the third thing is a pain diary. I think a pain diary can be very
helpful in showing what you've gone through, it's difficult to remember
what you were feeling like six months ago or eight months ago, but if you
keep a pain diary that can really help you jog your memory when you get to
a hearing. So you want to really make note of what you're going through. If
you need some help have a spouse or relative or friend help you with that.
But that's also very, very helpful because it shows that you're really
looking at this over long term and that it will help you get to a hearing.
So those are some tips about what to do about Failed Back Syndrome. I hope
you don't have it, if you do please give my office a call. We're happy to
help you. My office number is (770) 393-4985 and if you like this video and
some of the other videos from my channel here, please share them on plus,
on YouTube, Facebook, whatever social media you use. It's very helpful to
me to get the word out. So for now this is Jonathan Ginsberg and it's until
next time. I'll talk to you soon.