Mri results .need help

[cactuscath]

I had a 8 ft fall down a concrete pit at work almost 9 months ago. I landed on my left side. I continued working for a few months but was living on pain medication and not coping well. Since then I have been suffering from back hip and neck pain and wake up every day with a headache at the back of my head. I have recenlty had an MRI of my brain which showed no problems, So I then had an MRI of my complete spine. These are the results.

C2/3 discs are intact
C3/4 there is moderate disc narrowing and minor degree of posterior intervertabral osteophyte formation and mild disc bulging which causes minimal encroachment on subarachnoid space
C4/5 Moderate posterior midline disc bulging and minimal osteophyte formation. Disc osteophyte complex effaces anteriorsubarachnoid space and impinges upon the cordand causes minimal compression of the anterior midline of the cord, No foraminal stenosis or nerve root compression at this level.
C5/6 Slight disc narrowing and mild posterior disc annulus bulging causing slight encroachment upon the anterior subarachnoid space but no cord or nerve impingment.

MRI Thoracic Spine.
no abnormality detected.

MRI Lurabar Spine.
L1/2 L3/4 L4/5 Discs are intact.
L2/3 Slight disc narrowing loss of disc signal in keeping with dessication. Mild posterior disc annulus bulging with small annulus tear but no disc protrusion,stenosis or nerve root impingment.
L5/S1 Mild desiccation and loss of disc height but no annulus tear,protrusion or nerve impingement

Comments. Cervical region there is disc degeneration from C3 to C7 with posterior broad-based disc bulging and osteophyte formation most marked at C4/5. Slight impingement upon the cord. Lurabar region there is disc degeneration at L2/3 and L3/4 with presence of mild annulus bulging.

Medication I am taking is panadeine Forte, Valium, Emdep25mg and am in a great deal of pain most of the time. I have lost approx 10 kgs in the last 3 months,have no appetite, depressed with the whole situation and feel utterly useless.

I am currently on Work Compensation and after 3 months have not been reffered to specialist, and have only just been given a rehabilitation rep. I have tingling and nurabness in my ring and little fingers and often feel a mild electric shock sensation coming from middle of neck to back of head. I would really appreciate any opinions and advise. Thankyou

 

[Tammy12571]

My advice I would give you is get a referral to a specialist. If you don't get any pain relief from that one, get another referral. Repeat as much as needed to get relief. I have gone thru 7 doctors of varrying specialties (3 pain specialists) and if I don't get any relief, I will get another referral. It may be a long road for you ahead but it is your life and you shouldn't compromise your quality of life because your work says you have to (not in so many worRAB). Oh, I would probably get a lawyer too since this is worker's comp. Best of luck to you!

 

[bellanova]

I agree with Tammy, you have a long road ahead of you. Please remeraber the golden rule... YOU are responsible for your body, and no matter what, you need to make things happen, nobody else will do it for you. I trusted the the system i was in to 'fix' me after a car accident several years ago. I have learned the hard way, that no one feels your pain and you must persist with all your doctors to receive the adequate treatment that you deserve.

Visit your GP as often as possible, he will mark everything down in case you have to go to court for justice.

Good luck!

 

[feelbad]

just the fact that you even HAVE what was found to be a "minimal compression" upon your actual cord(that would be and could be much more depending upon who read your films too) ups that need to actually be referred to at the very least here, a good neurosurgeon for a consult and a good hanRAB on neuro eval of you and what would naturally be a good solid more experienced 're read" of your films by someone who just has deep surgical knowledge and experience. any rad report depenRAB mostly on how much overall real experience that particular rad has in interpretting any spinal issues. this is why almost no actual specialist really put alot of wieght on any raRAB read that is just the report you get?

just considering the overall mechanism of injury and what you are experiencing as symptoms and what was found so far in your MRI, you just seriously DO NEED to see a good neurosurgeon who would be able to give you any treatment options and prognosis here. what actually even will fully get picked up in any type of scan realistically is more of a 'rough idea' of the true level of what is actually going on in anyones spinal area. it IS only a mere scan and not a picture? in many cases, what even gets picked up can and usually is a bit more impactful and usually not less from my own experience and the experiences of the many many people who have posted on this board and the spinal board over the yearsas to what the true reality was that was found once a surgeon actually visualized with their own eyes was really going on in there when they did the surgeries on the patient. you just really do need to find out from someone who is highly experienced in this area to really find out just mostly what that cord 'compression' is and how truely deep that actually is. that also can be felt and seen by a neuro when they just do the hanRAB on eval where they simply test certain types of reactions that you would have that really dictates what areas are truely involved and how impacted that area of your cord is. there just ARE certain 'signs' that our body will display that dictate how really severe cord contact actually is.

the NS will look at that MRI(was this done with or without a contrasting agent added to better highlight certain findings? it does matter) and what you tell him or her your symptoms have been and also that very crucial neuro exam and then be able to really give you the best overall impression of whats going on in there, whats affected and what he thinks should be done. at some point that cord compression just HAS to be relieved or it will continue to become more impactful(espescially by what is actually causing it to be there). the fact you have NO myelomalacia going on yet is a very good thing since it would be a much more compressed area if it were listed as a finding.

being on WC still requires them to actually send you for a good eval/consult with a specialist and should have been already set up after that report came out following your MRI. i would start demanding certain things here at this point just given the nature of what was found in that report alone. some of what you have going on there tho is stuff that was already there since it takes alot of time for the level of certain findings you have to even be there, but there is no way to really know just how much of that cord became compressed given the hieght of that fall and what you actually landed on.

did they not even send you to a hospital to at least have an eval and CT done on you at the time this actually happened? if they did not bother to even do that given what happened, someone has some explaining to do. start bugging the hell out of WC here to just get a very basic "should have been done by now" need met for your own sake. i do hope you can get to a good NS much sooner vs later. if you are actually doing ANY real PT here, i would tell them until you have been 'cleared' by the actual NS, you are not going to risk making a bad situation worse since there is no way of really knowing if what they have you actually doing with a cord compression there at all is going to make things worse or better for YOU right now. this just IS your spinal cord here, and you do not take any chances with that going on to it. right now it is up to you to just stick up for your rights here. please keep us posted as to what you find out. good luck cactus, marcia

 

[4aulkner]

Hi Cactuscath - sorry to hear about your back problems, and they are problems. I too fell on cement (not as far a fall as yours) went to the hospital in agony, they xrayed, said "there was nothing broken", and sent me home with the caveat that I should only do half as much as I felt like doing. I struggled with it for three and a half months (half of nothing being just about nothing), took a lot of percocet, and finally complained enough to my GP that they sent me for an MRI that revealed, surprise surprise, T12 was crushed and impinging on my spinal column. Hence the constant pain. I was scheduled for a kyphoplasty where they put a little balloon in the vertebra, fill it with an acrylic cement and voila! No more pain. It's done under a CTscan. I went in at 6 a.m., and was home (about twenty miles away) by 2 p.m. and for the first time in three and a half months had NO pain. Miracle as far as I was concerned. That being said, now, nearly three years on I still struggle and have to exercise constantly to keep my back in moderately comfortable shape. I don't know that this is your problem but, as another commenter said, people can mis-read all manner of xrays and MRIs or mis-interpret them. Keep pushing. Keep complaining. I think women tend to downplay the amount of pain they feel - don't do that! Let everyone and anyone who'll listen know just how bad it is. And the very best of luck!