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MRI results and Pain symptoms not matching. Dr says nothing he can do.
Spine Health | Last Active: Nov 18 10:52pm | Replies (25)Comment receiving replies
When I walk it hurts in the right lower back, across the hip, down around the very top of my leg, in my lower leg it hurts under the knee and down the right side on the front of my leg. On the left side it hurts in the same way but does not travel down the leg.
When I bend over or move laterally it hurts in the back at the waistline and to the left down into the buttocks.
The aching seems to encompass my whole leg but feels predominantly focused on the upper thighs, side of upper leg and ankle without a sharp distinction.
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@sbraden1234 I think your pain does follow and match up where you have spine issues. This is a dermatome map. It shows you where nerves end up that leave the spinal cord at each level. If you circle or shade in where your pain is, it should match the imaging descriptions for where your issues are. These spinal nerves exit at the nerve roots which are a predictable result. The way you describe your symptoms, it does follow the dermatome map.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK535401/figure/article-29335.image.f1/
When you have a disc bulge into the central spinal canal, it can compress the spinal cord, and can affect any nerves below that level. This is very hard to predict exactly where pain will be felt because the spinal cord floats and moves in the spinal fluid, and it all depends on how you move or bend, and pain can change locations. If by chance, you have any bad discs compressing the spinal cord in either cervical or thoracic levels, that will confuse the diagnosis because those can generate pain that is hard to predict. This will not correlate to the dermatome map.
When your neck hurts, this may be confusing your surgeon because that wouldn't be involved in any lumbar pathology. If you do have some neck disc issues in addition to lumbar, it will confuse things, and the spinal cord in the neck can generate pain in the legs. These are the same nerve axons (cells) as they travel to lower body parts that pass through the neck.
I had this situation call funicular pain, and because surgeons could not correctly map my pain, I was refused 5 times. I came to Mayo to a surgeon who understood this. I have a bulging lumbar disk, but it is asymptomatic. I had a cervical fusion which solved all the pain that I had all over my body and legs.
It's also possible that you surgeon doesn't want to consider a possible bad result on his record of his surgery, and it is easier to send you away than confront a possible failure. I think a second opinion is a good idea, and do that at another facility not connected with your current surgeon because doctors don't want to challenge the opinion of a friend and colleague.
Do yo have another surgeon in mind at a respected institution?