MRI
I had an MRI done on my back the other day which was really fun. By fun i mean you get to lie down in a tube for 20 mintues with the emergency broadcast system noise blaring in your ears.
Anyways, this is what a healthy spine should look like:
OK Those aren't exactly healthy, ignore the curvature. Note the gray ovalish shaped things between the white blocks. Those are your discs. The light gray color indicates a soft jelly-like center of the disc. The black line running vertical just to the right of the discs is your spinal cord, a big mess of nerves.
OK by weird coincidence, here's another image which looks eerily similar to my spine:
First of all it freaked me out that a picture so similar to what I had just seen popped up on a google images search. The guy who posted in describes his story, which bears some similarities to, but it much worse in some respects, than my own. You can read about it here .
There are two things to note in this image. First, the two lower discs that are visible (L4-L5 and L5-S1) are completely black (as compared to the discs above that have a white center. This indicates premature drying out of the soft center of the disc. Ouch. This is genetic. So if you are related to me and have back pain, this could be why.
The other thing is that the lowest disc (L5-S1) protrudes slightly into the spinal column. This causes more ouch as it aggravates the nerves in that region. This is a slightly herniated disc. Fortunately it's not obstructing them too greatly or I would be in a lot more pain, marked by radiating pain down the leg and muscle weakness (i.e. sciatica).
I also saw some horizontal cross section in this region which showed more clearly how the disc protrudes into an area where it shouldn't be, but I can't find anything like those online.
Diagnosis: My spine is "older than me" and isn't going to get any better. Stretching and strengthening exercises and limited load bearing is recommended. Anti-Inflammatories are helpful. My Dr. also recommended Glucosamine which he said is one of the few OTC dietary supplements with "some science behind it" and is supposed to be helpful for joints. Moreso load bearing joints, but he said it seemed to help out his neck even. I picked up some of this at Trader Joe's. Another option is something like a cortizone (sp?) shot directly to the affected area of the spine. Relatively low risk and could provide relief for 6-12 months. I don't feel like I'm so discomforted that I need that just yet. A last option is surgery to repair the hernaited disc, but that is not recommended by anyone unless much more severe pain is brought on and doesn't abate, and more conservative methods of treatment yield little results.
Though none of this was really surprising, it's nice to know more about what exactly is going on with my body.
Anyways, this is what a healthy spine should look like:
OK Those aren't exactly healthy, ignore the curvature. Note the gray ovalish shaped things between the white blocks. Those are your discs. The light gray color indicates a soft jelly-like center of the disc. The black line running vertical just to the right of the discs is your spinal cord, a big mess of nerves.
OK by weird coincidence, here's another image which looks eerily similar to my spine:
First of all it freaked me out that a picture so similar to what I had just seen popped up on a google images search. The guy who posted in describes his story, which bears some similarities to, but it much worse in some respects, than my own. You can read about it here .
There are two things to note in this image. First, the two lower discs that are visible (L4-L5 and L5-S1) are completely black (as compared to the discs above that have a white center. This indicates premature drying out of the soft center of the disc. Ouch. This is genetic. So if you are related to me and have back pain, this could be why.
The other thing is that the lowest disc (L5-S1) protrudes slightly into the spinal column. This causes more ouch as it aggravates the nerves in that region. This is a slightly herniated disc. Fortunately it's not obstructing them too greatly or I would be in a lot more pain, marked by radiating pain down the leg and muscle weakness (i.e. sciatica).
I also saw some horizontal cross section in this region which showed more clearly how the disc protrudes into an area where it shouldn't be, but I can't find anything like those online.
Diagnosis: My spine is "older than me" and isn't going to get any better. Stretching and strengthening exercises and limited load bearing is recommended. Anti-Inflammatories are helpful. My Dr. also recommended Glucosamine which he said is one of the few OTC dietary supplements with "some science behind it" and is supposed to be helpful for joints. Moreso load bearing joints, but he said it seemed to help out his neck even. I picked up some of this at Trader Joe's. Another option is something like a cortizone (sp?) shot directly to the affected area of the spine. Relatively low risk and could provide relief for 6-12 months. I don't feel like I'm so discomforted that I need that just yet. A last option is surgery to repair the hernaited disc, but that is not recommended by anyone unless much more severe pain is brought on and doesn't abate, and more conservative methods of treatment yield little results.
Though none of this was really surprising, it's nice to know more about what exactly is going on with my body.
posted by Paul at
1:33 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Paul, your MRI looks a lot like mine. Must be a genetic thing for me too. Are you tall? I'm about 5'11 and the doc thinks that has something to do with it. Take it easy!
By
jenetic, at 8:22 PM
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