Hi Lemnoc,

I don't think anybody actually sat down and thought, "Let's write this report to scare the bejeebers out of this person." These reports are written by medicos for medicos - in their own jargon. Most patients don't even see them, let alone understand them (I sure don't, even though I do read them and keep copies).

I got what I thought was a pretty scary report too, but as it turns out, if somebody is in a condition that warrants getting an MRI, the report is apt to sound pretty scary to the average lay person anyway.

As it was put to me by my ortho guy, lots of people are walking around with stenosis and other scary sounding spinal conditions, and are in no pain at all, and I believe that. What does it mean? Absolutely nothing. Well, actually, it means that just having stenosis does not necessarily mean that person is in pain, or that because a person is in pain, that the stenosis is the cause (although it could be). Every person, every case, every stenosis (or other abnormality) is different. It's probably just not a good idea for anyone (medicos or patients) to make broad sweeping statements in either direction.

As to why he says it's pretty much normal for a 50 year-old - I think it probably is. These guys see lots of these reports, of people in pain, who have something wrong, so for what they see, it's going to be 'typical'. Partly it's the price we pay for walking upright - lotta stress put on that upright spine in 50+ years. And 50, in the long course of humanity, is actually a pretty long time; the average human lifespan has increased dramatically, especially during the 20th century. See: Fig 1.
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2...f-lifespan.php

So what we consider middle age today was a pretty ripe old age not that long ago.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we need to put these things into perspective, and that your doc could/should have done a better job of explaining things to you. It does take time to get a proper Dx. Sometimes a good deal of time, money, & effort are spent just ruling things out, and then more spent trying to figure out the real reasons. In the meantime, we're the ones who have to endure the pain and other symptoms. I don't have an answer/solution for that; we're all in the same boat.

Medical knowledge is greater now than ever, and the increases in knowledge & technology are coming faster than ever, but they still don't know a fraction of what there is to know, or what we think they do/should know.

I'll stop rambling now....

Doc