About fractures

Posted by dcgan @dcgan, 3 days ago

Can someone explain why some spinal fractures are excruciating and others can happen without being aware? Is there a difference between compression fracture and spinal fracture?

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oopsiedaisy | @oopsiedaisy | 2 days ago

It depends on the severity of the fracture and the resulting nerve root impingement. A wedge-shaped fracture with severe compression will place more pressure on the nerve root (where the nerves emerge from the spine) and cause more pain. It can also cause disk herniation which leads to more pain.

Some fractures are very slight, with only a small amount of compression so they don't cause nerve impingement as much.

The back muscles are also impacted by the nerve impingement and can quickly lose strength, which causes additional pain because they are not supporting your spine as well as they did. This leads to further loss of strength.

I had a 20% compression at T8 15 months ago and the pain was terrible. I had no idea I had fracture and chalked it up to a muscle injury. By the time it was diagnosed four months later it had healed but my back muscles were very weak. I did rehab and have been working on back strengthening since then and am pain-free 90% of the time. It was a slow process to recover.