L4-5 Protrusion 15*9
 

Hello,

my name is paul.
I Just joined this site because I'm concerned about my Lumbar MRI. Below are the finds from a lumber MRI I took Aug 13, 2013.

T12-L1: No central canal stenosis. Neural Foramina are patent.

L1-2: No central canal stenosis. Neural Foramina are patent.

L2-3: No central canal stenosis. Neural foramina are patent.

L3-4: No central canal stenosis. Neural foramina are patent.

L4-5: There is a far lateral neural foraminal disc protrusion that results in a moderate narrowing of the right neural foramina. The disc protrusion measures 15*9 mm on axial image 31 of series 5. No central canal stenosis. Left neural foramina is patent.


Those are the results.

Can someone please help me understand my results and let me know how bad they are. My dr. said my L4-5 disc protrusion is cause my right leg pain and numbness in my right shin. Is that possible??? Plus i barely have any right knee reflex, which he also attributes to L4-5 protrusion. I guess I'm just worried because I've had physical therapy and 2 epidural injections and i have absolutely no relief. The pain started in my back, but now i have no back pain all right leg pain and butt pain. This has taking over my life for the past 2 months. Can someone please shed some light on my situation???? Any recommendations will highly be appreciated.

Thanks,
Paul

Nice to meet you!!
 

This is a serious problem and needs to be addressed ASAP ( dont want to worry you) but sometimes you have to try and push your doctor in the direction you want as it is hard to portray your pain levels sometimes.

If I may give you some advice. I had a 12mm disk protrusion at l4/l5. My advice would be to get surgery on anything over 4mm disk protrusion as soon as possible. The reason I say this is I did physical therapy for 12months 3times a week after being diagnosed with 3 disk protrusion at l3/l4 3mm, l4/l5 12mm and l5/s1 4mm. After my 12months of therapy in order to make the protrusions "go back in" i was faced with an MRI that stated disk protrusions had gone back in at all levels except for l4/l5 there was no change.

Due to waiting so long to have surgery when they opened me up for a discectomy/laminectomy/neurolysis 2months ago my surgeon said it was the worst he had seen in 33yrs of operation. His reason was that my disk had healed while it was still protruding and pressing on the nerve. So scar tissue has wrapped around my damaged nerve from the disk causing irreversable nerve damage! so after surgery i have exactly the same pain as i did before but am adamant if i did it earlier i would have seen much more positive results.

My word of advice dont listen to people who say the disk will heal itelf as that is all well and good if it is in the correct place as if it heals while it is still protruding you are facing a lifetime of pain if left for too long.

Im 19yrs old by the way so all this stuff about age is on your side didnt work for me. My pain was in both legs and I was vomiting every single night for about the first 2months(it got worse at night for some reason) from the pain and no medication worked!

I totally agree! This week will be 2 months to the day my injury occurred. I have an appointment with a top orthopedic surgeon. I am so sick of the pain and numbness in my right leg. This has been absolute hell for 2 months. Next weekend my wife and I are baptizing our 7 month old son and I'm not looking forward to it. This injury has taking over my life. It's all in my leg no back pain at all. I am worried about surgery, but anything would be better then this pain. I feel handicapped and limited to what I can do. PT is useless and just causes more pain and soreness. Thanks for you advise. I will keep you post to what the Surgeon has to say this Thursday afternoon. Looking forward to this appointment. Thank you :)

That sounds so similar to mine I have never had back pain just all nerve pain and numbness n my legs. I just spoke to my surgeon today on the phone and he said the MRI stated that my surgery went perfectly as there is no structural sign that should be causing my ongoing pain. From this I take it that nerve damage has occurred and I am 100% certain now that if I had this surgery before 6months or even earlier and it went perfectly as stated I would be pain free! Hopefully your surgeon will lead you down the right path and a pain free life may well be on its way!

Sometimes its hard to remember what a pain free life feels like but you have the chance to tackle your problem earlier; I dismissed surgery as an option at 6months from a GP and I will regret it for as long as my pain is still here. Hope it all goes well and really listen to what he has to say. I have seen 3 neurosurgeons and they all say the best candidates are those have only leg pain as research has shown that surgery is much more effective in relieving leg pain than that of back pain.

Hope this helps and all goes well!

Thanks for all your advise! Just woke up and before getting out of bed I had zero pain. The minute I get up for my first morning pee and walk back to bed the pain kicks in...right butt pain all the way thru my right leg down to my shin. This pain and numbness is depressing. Already had my hydrocodone. Today should be interesting. Can't wait til tomorrow's appt.

Yeh it sounds all to familiar! although I have been on Opoids for to long I have become Opoid resistant according to my doctors. The pain can get you down but i find the worst part is no one can truly grasp what its like and there is no way of explaining it to them.