question: I have been diagnosed during surgery with chronic lower back pain, documented by the anesthesiologist, & the attending surgeon, .. .. When I came out of the general anesthesia, is when I was told, .. .. .. I had hurt my back in the service, getting caught in a scrum playing rugby (of all things), and being half on top of one guy when another fell across my chest in a shearing action, & at the time it happened, it sounded,( internally like someone breaking a string on a guitar, with a pling sound, & kinda like getting snapped with a rubberband, .. .. .. But it was not that painful @ that time, so the next day I had guard mount, & bent over to lace up my boots, it went out again only this time it hurt like hell, & took me almost 10 minutes to get straightened up, & off of the bed, and another 10 minutes to get downstairs for guard mount, I was put on light duty for about a 3 month plus period, during which time it would give me a fit whenever the weather would change, ... & I have tweaked it several times over the years, working as a truckdriver, machinist, & a painter, never had insurance so I had to wait a few days for it to quit hurting enough to get my butt back to work, & once got fired for not showing up because I had told him I would be there rain or shine, but couldn t make it, .... At any rate, I was working, & blew it out again, only this time the pain was more intense like it originally was, ... I thought that a few beers would loosen it up, so I had a few after work, but was still really sore & hurting, I made it through another day @ work, but by the next morning, I was in so much pain that it literally hurt to breathe, & the foreman squawked about why I didn t have his temp take me in the day before, as he played hooky, .. .. .. At any rate he took me to the company Dr,/nurse practitioner, & she sent me to the workers comp office at the hospital, there they set me up for x-rays,& a MRI. Shortening the story I had blown out the L-4/L-5& the L-5/S-1 discs, the MRI showed that one disc was completely gone, & the other was almost all gone, ... At this point in time the pain was excruciating, I was a level 9/10 most of the time for about 2& 1/2months, then it would ease a little, then get worse again, the Dr trying any/every type of PT to see what felt better worse, ...& made me undergo a procedure where a dye dwas pumped into each disc affected, & when he hit the one, I screamed bloody murder, & almost passed out, gasping for air, & seeing stars dancing around my head, ... That pain level was about a12 on the 1/10 scale, ... I had the robo-cop/ironman/6million$ man fusion surgery, with the 2rods, 62&3/4 screws, & 3little clamps holding my lower back together, ... I have filed for compensation with the VA, they now have this documented, & my representative told me that I need to get a 2nd opinion from a private practitioner to tell them that this is/was related to the original injury, ... Any guidance on this train of thought, would be appreciated, ...