Back Pain Forum - Lumbar Back Mri

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What structures make up the spine? We review basic spine anatomy here...before identifying potential causes of back pain....

Q: Lumbar Back Mri

asked by: Rellik01 on October 8th, 2004

New User

Could someone please translate this mri report to english....

Findings...There is a transitional vertebral segment present at the lumbosacral junction which, foer the purpose of numbering, will be referred to as a sacralized l5 segment with a rudimentary l5-s1 disc space. Given this numbering, at the l4-5 level, there is asymetric disc space narrowing, right more than left, associated with an asymmetric, right sided posterior and far posterolatera disc protrusion/herniation, with some accompanying osteophytes, resulting in some asymmetric compromise of the right lateral recess and right l4 neural foramen. This is superimposed upon posterior disc bulging and mild hypertrophic changes of the facet joints, resulting in some narrowing of the left lateral recess, as well. Discogenic bony degenerative signal change is seen adjacent to the vertbral end plates at this level. The remainder of the intervertebral discs appear maintained and the remainder of the canal and neural foramina appear free of compromise. Intradurally, the cauda equina appears intrinsically within normal limits and there are no intradural abnormalities noted. There are no fractures or destructive osseous lesions demostrated. There are no paravertebral soft tissue masses noted.

Impression... A transitional vertebral segment is present at the lumbosacral junction and referred to as a sacralized l5 segment. Given this numbering, at the l4-5 level, there is right sided posterior and far posterolateral disc protrusion/herniation, with some accompanying osteophytes, encroaching upon the canal and resulting in some asymmetric narrowing of the lateral recesses, right more than left and asymmetric compromise of the right l4 neural foramen, as noted above.

Would this be consistent with terrible lower back pain, hip pain, leg, foot pain and numbness.

Thank you for the courtesy of a reply.

Replies(11)

Rellik01

replied on October 12th, 2004

New User

Hoping for a reply

Tamadrummer

replied on October 15th, 2004

Active User, very eHealthy

If you are anywhere near one of the many spine institutes around the us. Go and get help. If not, take your mri results to your normal doc and ask for a referral to an orthopedic doctor and try to get help.

Rellik01

replied on October 15th, 2004

New User

Unbiased Opinion

Well.......What I was hoping for was an unbiased opinion, my concern is that doctors would calculate their next mortgage payment on my back.

Tamadrummer

replied on October 15th, 2004

Active User, very eHealthy

In this day and age of hmos, doctors mortgages are paid in the first 2 or 3 days of the month. They are forced to see a bizillion patients a day and so that really agrevates me! Anyway, all I can say is the way I feel about "self-help and chiropractic and acupuncture" is that it is all voo-doo and that trained doctors of medicne should be left to their jobs. Fixing you up. It is a long process, they do all they can in the most conservitive methods possible and then the big "s" comes. You now have choices, disc replacement or fusion for the biggest and the many, many other forms that are outpatient before those. I am hoping the doc that has been posting here will post in here, algsdoc where are you???? You need to be fixed and voo-doo medicine can and probably will only hurt you worse.

willbeone

replied on October 18th, 2004

New User

Sounds Like

Sounds like sciatica to me. There are many opinions on how to treat it ranging from exercises to surgery. You can read about my experience and others at sciaticaforum.Com. This site was a lifesaver for me.

drlarry

replied on October 25th, 2004

New User

tamadrummer wrote:

in this day and age of hmos, doctors mortgages are paid in the first 2 or 3 days of the month. They are forced to see a bizillion patients a day and so that really agrevates me! Anyway, all I can say is the way I feel about "self-help and chiropractic and acupuncture" is that it is all voo-doo and that trained doctors of medicne should be left to their jobs. Fixing you up. It is a long process, they do all they can in the most conservitive methods possible and then the big "s" comes. You now have choices, disc replacement or fusion for the biggest and the many, many other forms that are outpatient before those. I am hoping the doc that has been posting here will post in here, algsdoc where are you???? You need to be fixed and voo-doo medicine can and probably will only hurt you worse.

wow real helpful response. If doctors see a bizillion patients per day they must be very thorough with evaluating patients and staying abreast of new research etc.
Self-help must be a real horrible approach to helping a patient help themselves, man I think this gives a whole new meaning to preventitive health care or proactive health care.
Oh now I get it, if patients actually help themselves a little more I will probably go broke because I wouldn't have anyone coming to my office anymore for the ridiculous amount of prescriptions written, me the human pill dispenser would be out of job. The pharmaceutical companies would go broke and wouldn't be able to pay all us silly docs to sit on their stupid panels, for money of course, as we all know this is a legal way around kickbacks to the docs for pushing their meds down our poor stupid patients throats. The poor colleges and universities, not to mention the politicians(lobbyists) would lose an immense amount of money from lack of pharmaceutical profit, we surely would not want this to happen.
I'm not very up to speed on acupuncture but there is an enormous amount of very reputable research on chiropractic. Do a search for "magna report". Study done by the canadian govt. Etc., I guess the canucks have their crap a little more together shall we say.
It always facinates me with the wealth of information on the web etc. That people such as yourself make such comments.
I once heard an old saying that applies to you, "better to be thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and prove it"
maybe you might get it, maybe you won't.

broken

replied on October 25th, 2004

New User

Rellike01,
i'm not a radiologist, but what that report describes appears to be a "herniated disk" at your 4-5th lumbar vertebre region...I don't know your age or history, but alot of times this can be treated with physcial therapy, surgery, or, like others have suggested...Chiropractic or accupuncture. I hope you feel better soon.

RevolutionGrrrl5

replied on November 2nd, 2004

New User

My doctor laughed at me today and saw me for 3 minutes. I'm a 24 year old female who has a mild back injury from a car accident I was in 2 months ago... I have a tear in my l5 and disc degeneration with exteme pain... He said basically my pain is made up and I should not be having any..And that there was nothing he could do..Not even some sort of injection. He said I must not handle pain very well.

I'm beginning to lose my faith in doctors...There's so very few good ones around...My advice is to get a good doctor through word of mouth and not just guess. I'm so sorry your back is so bad and don't let anybody tell you that you're over-reacting from your pain. I'm sure it's bad since your mri results are much worse than mine.

I hope you start feeling better... I've been in physical therapy for a month with no results. I'm just a number to then there as well. I'm moving to canada if this continues.

Kristin

Tamadrummer

replied on November 2nd, 2004

Active User, very eHealthy

Revolutiongrrrl5

you are in a great state for back doctors. Maybe, if it is possible for you to do this. You can have you doctor give you a referal to cleavland or cincinatti(sp) spine institutes. I am not sure if you are close to either of these. It sounds as though your regular doctor isn't being very sensitive to your needs and with tears in any of your discs you should be able to have injections at a minimum if not neucleoplasty or i.D.E.T. As a conservitive treatment and then laminectomy w/fusion or now that lumbar disc replacement has been approved, you can get the charite 3 lumbar disc. There is absolutely no reason anyone should tell you to live in pain and you certianly are not weak for having pain! Smile

I hope you get better and are treated fairly!

saphy

replied on November 10th, 2004

New User

Hi, I live in canada, and I don't think it is so great, I have a bulging disc and a pinched nerve in the l5 area, with numbness in my leg and foot. My injury happened nearly 2 years ago and I still live in pain. My doc told me I had to learn to live with it because the specialist I seen twice said he wouldn't operate, it would get better on its own. So now I wait to see another specialist, and there is a 12 month waiting list. So I really feel for you, it is horrible pain, and very frustrating waiting on doctors.

Saphy

ajames

replied on November 11th, 2004

New User

revolutiongrrrl5 wrote:

my doctor laughed at me today and saw me for 3 minutes. I'm a 24 year old female who has a mild back injury from a car accident I was in 2 months ago... I have a tear in my l5 and disc degeneration with exteme pain... He said basically my pain is made up and I should not be having any..And that there was nothing he could do..Not even some sort of injection. He said I must not handle pain very well.

I'm beginning to lose my faith in doctors...There's so very few good ones around...My advice is to get a good doctor through word of mouth and not just guess. I'm so sorry your back is so bad and don't let anybody tell you that you're over-reacting from your pain. I'm sure it's bad since your mri results are much worse than mine.

I hope you start feeling better... I've been in physical therapy for a month with no results. I'm just a number to then there as well. I'm moving to canada if this continues.

Kristin

i am with u on this one because I had to fight for workers comp for about 5 years to get a test on my back and to find that my l4 l5 disk had a tear and lots of doctors said before the test that the pain was in my head.
Well I had a fusion done 9 months ago and I am in severe pain right now and looks like if the hardwear comes out maybe this will help I hope but got to wait and see. All I can say is that back surgery has not been so nice to me. I had even a staph infection after surgery and that is so common now when you have any type of surgery but not everybody gets it. Dang sounds like you are getting the run around with doctors. If my doctor laughed at me I would have told the doc he or she was a retard.

Ajames

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