C
CWootton
Guest
Hi everyone; I'm new to this board and thought I'd drop in for a chat about nasty spines and treatment options.
I have FMS and DDD, with a lot of O/A everywhere, but most problematic in my spine. I had been getting weekly injections of local anasethic into my thoracic and lurabar areas. Last Deceraber I fell on an icy day. I'm not new to back pain so when a few days later my back started aching a lot, I put anti-inflammatory cream on it and did more stretching exercises. Months later, nothing I'm doing is making a difference; the rheumtologist's weekly shots are not helping a bit; I had several weeks of massage therapy. Nice but it changed nothing. The long awaited lurabar MRI scan was a few weeks ago; similar to the rest of the spine, all of the discs showed bulges and moderate to severe disc degeneration and a few other relatively minor things.
Except for L1-L2; it says (I can't even begin to paraphrase, so): "At L1/2, there is a broad based difuse disc bulge asymetric to the right associated with moderate bilateral facet osteoarthritis with mild indentation of the thecal sac, however there is no central stenosis. There is mild left and moderate right neural foraminal stenosis. The exiting nerve root does appear to be contacted by the disc bulge laterally."
The next week the doctor started giving me a nerve block shot into all lurabar and a couple of thoracic vertebrae. He warned me about the risks, but said that this can give me greater pain relief. I've lived with the symptoms related to this particular disc for more than 12 years. Back then it was dignosed by symptoms alone as a herniated disc. I had to change my entire life to work in 2-3X weekly physiotherapy treatments and exercises several times a day. Two years and several thousand dollars later, nothing I did had helped so packed it all in, and I've ended up with a weak right leg and miserable chronic pain in my right hip that spasms nastily on occasion. Until last Deceraber.
The rheummy told me that the surgical option would be decompression. The nerve block shots haven
I have FMS and DDD, with a lot of O/A everywhere, but most problematic in my spine. I had been getting weekly injections of local anasethic into my thoracic and lurabar areas. Last Deceraber I fell on an icy day. I'm not new to back pain so when a few days later my back started aching a lot, I put anti-inflammatory cream on it and did more stretching exercises. Months later, nothing I'm doing is making a difference; the rheumtologist's weekly shots are not helping a bit; I had several weeks of massage therapy. Nice but it changed nothing. The long awaited lurabar MRI scan was a few weeks ago; similar to the rest of the spine, all of the discs showed bulges and moderate to severe disc degeneration and a few other relatively minor things.
Except for L1-L2; it says (I can't even begin to paraphrase, so): "At L1/2, there is a broad based difuse disc bulge asymetric to the right associated with moderate bilateral facet osteoarthritis with mild indentation of the thecal sac, however there is no central stenosis. There is mild left and moderate right neural foraminal stenosis. The exiting nerve root does appear to be contacted by the disc bulge laterally."
The next week the doctor started giving me a nerve block shot into all lurabar and a couple of thoracic vertebrae. He warned me about the risks, but said that this can give me greater pain relief. I've lived with the symptoms related to this particular disc for more than 12 years. Back then it was dignosed by symptoms alone as a herniated disc. I had to change my entire life to work in 2-3X weekly physiotherapy treatments and exercises several times a day. Two years and several thousand dollars later, nothing I did had helped so packed it all in, and I've ended up with a weak right leg and miserable chronic pain in my right hip that spasms nastily on occasion. Until last Deceraber.
The rheummy told me that the surgical option would be decompression. The nerve block shots haven