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Excruciating pain from cervical (C7/T1) radiculopathy
Spine Health | Last Active: Jul 19, 2023 | Replies (61)Comment receiving replies
Jennifer, Thank you for asking. This is my spine condition from a recent CT scan. I'm an 82 going on 83 female.
L1-2 - subcentimeter right intraforaminal disc extrusion. This may be compressed the right intraforaminal L5 nerve. Mild facet osteoarthrosis in the right. No central canal stenosis.
L2-L3 - Severe disc height loss. Small disc bulge. Mild left foraminal narrowing. No central canal stenosis. Mild facet osteothrosis.
L3-4 - Moderate disc height loss. Moderate facet osteoarthrosis. Small posterior disc osteophyte complex. Mild central canal stenosis. No foarminal narrowing.
L4-L5 - Severe disc height loss. Severe facet osteoarthrosis. Severe foraminal narrowing compressing the right intraforaminal L4 nerve. Mild central canal stenosis.
L5-S1 - Moderate disc height loss. Moderate facet osteparthrosis. Severe left foraminal narrowing compressing the intraforaminal left L5 nerve. Mild central canal stenosis.
IMPRESSION: Multilevel degenerative changes. Multiple levels of facet osteothrosis. Disc herniation loss of disc height. No compression vertebral deformaties or listhesis. Central canal stenosis, foraminal narrowing and nerve compression.
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@lebanon100 Thanks for sharing your report. How is your bone quality? My 92 year old mom has had a spine compression fracture and has severe osteoporosis, and that disqualified her from having a procedure to cement the pieces back together after the fracture. I would guess that you may be in some pain because of nerves that are compressed between the vertebrae, and some of that compression comes from the loss of disc height. With my cervical spine, I had lost about 50% of the disc height in C5/C6, and if I side bent my neck, it caused severe pain down my arms when it pressed on the nerves because the bones were closer together making the space smaller and I bent that and caused it to touch the nerve. I didn't have narrowing of the space other than loss of disc height. When I had the spinal fusion, it restored that proper disc height by putting a bone spacer in the space left from removing the disc.
What can happen when discs collapse completely is that the spine begins to fuse itself when the vertebrae bones start to touch each other. The good news in your report is that the vertebrae are staying in line and not slipping past each other (listhesis) and there are no fractures. The foraminal narrowing talks about the spaces between vertebrae (foramen) where the nerves exit the spinal cord. Central canal stenosis means that there is narrowing in the central canal around the spinal cord. That was exactly what happened in my neck, and I had spinal cord compression until my surgery with Dr. Fogelson that took away the bad disc and the bone spurs that were pressing on it. The facets are the joints that let the vertebrae slide when you twist the spine.
Are you having loss of mobility and function that prompted your CT exam? Is your pain being managed? Are you under any treatment for thinning of the bones? (I ask that because it is so important, and I see what my mom has gone through because of osteoporosis.)