Scared and in need of MRI help

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KristinMarie

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I am a 25 year old female about to graduate college ***REMOVED***

I had a laminectomy at L4-L5 in 2006 and have recently had horribly increased back pain, so my surgeon refered me for an MRI--- Now I can't read the results and he is out of town for a week =\. I feel like my life is slipping away from me (my dreams, my career) because this report LOOKS so bad... I thought I might just have had a recurring herniation--- but that isn't the case.... not long is L4-L5 involved, but so is L3-L4, and L5-S1....

I am so scared, :(and in between crying bouts, so I just thought maybe someone knew what this said... I've been googling stuff, but can't seem to find any difinitive answers:confused:.... any help would be so incredibly appreciated

Kristin

1. Status post left laminectomy and central microdiscectomy at L4-5, without recurrent disc herniation. Bilateral mild far lateral protrusions are present, with caudal narrowing of each neural foramen.

2. Moderate right paracentral protrusion at L3-4, with mild central stenosis, moderate right and mild left lateral recess stenosis.

3. Moderate left paracentral protrusion at L5-S1, with mild right and moderate left lateral recess stenosis.

Thank you in advance
 
Unfortunately, it sounRAB like that you are still have narrowing of the spinal openings on Levels L3 thru s1. Have they done an EMG? I would think this would be important to determine if you have acute or chronic neuropathy. If you have acute, then it is still fixable. It is debatable whether chronic is fixable or not.

The key will be whether they can do further decompression thru a laminectomy or if they will have to do decompression followed up with a fusion. If they do to much decompression, there is a risk of the spine becoming unstable and you needing to have a fusion which is what happened in my case.

Remeraber I am simply another spinney who has been thru 5 surgeries so my education consists only of patient recovery and suffering. :jester:

Good luck.
 
Although I have been dealing with back issues for 20+ yrs now, I am not even as medically savvy as dietdrpepper! Based on my experience and all of the countless MRI's I have had my advice would be not to even try to figure out all the medical terms and meanings. You're better off waiting in the physical pain for your doc to read and review the MRI and the findings report, instead of adding the mental frustration of trying to figure out what it all means! I hope you at the very least get some answers soon! One quick note regarding the EMG procedure possibility - seek out a good doc for this! I failed to do so before I had mine. My EMG ended up being more painful and problematic than it should've been and I have always been suspect of the results obtained. Best of luck to you ... hang in there.
 
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