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Member
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Paradise
Posts: 855
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Paradise
Posts: 855
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Smith
Sounds like you answered your own question.  I've herniated discs many times, and they seem to heal in time (usually a few weeks for me), though I have a few places where there's no appreciable disc material left (bone-on-bone). My surgeon advised me from the get-go that there would be some natural adaptation/healing in the form of auto-fusing of vertebrae, and imaging shows that has happened, and is continuing to happen. Over time some things hurt less—other things hurt more.
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Doc, this is not direct at you, rather just a general response.
Take two points in time one year apart. The first, you have raging back pain and leg symptoms. A year later, you have minimal or no lower back pain and no real leg symptoms. Forget everything else...diagnosis, treatment, etc. If two MRI's were done, one at each point, it is not uncommon for both to be relatively the same, showing the same root compression despite no "root" symptoms associated with the latter. Or, you may show, significant dehydration of the disc, retraction from the root or early disc height loss and beginning of marginal spurs. The point is, forget about looking at MRI's and saying, "what are my symptoms," rather use MRI's to decide "if your current symptoms are supported by your MRI findings."
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