I am a newbie to any kind of back problems so please bear with me. My 15 year old son started out with intermittent knee pains for the last 2 years. It finally got persistant enough and painful enough to go to the doctor. He recommended physical therapy. Then his back hurt. An xray showed a pars defect. Switched the physical therapy from the knees to his back. His back hurt worse...this is in the span of 4 weeks. They did an MRI and found an annular tear in his L4 vertabrae.

He sees the pain management specialist this upcoming week. In the mean time he is on Darvocet. He has missed 2 weeks of school so far. In the last week his knees have given out twice so he has a nice forehead full of scabs where he'caca the walls. The orthopedic doctor indicated no structural damage to the knees and that surgery wasn't indicated for his back.

I know that his back does feel somewhat better when he takes the Darvocet. He can at least get some sleep. It does nothing to help his knees. I don't know what to expect next week. I am really worried for him. Any of you here have any experience or insight?