<Warning: Anatomy Images ahead – stop reading if you don’t like seeing them – not really graphic though>
My leg pain is getting a bit better, day by day – I was actually able to walk around for about 25 minutes yesterday, along with handling a short car ride. Go steroids go! (albeit, I still can’t feel my foot at all, but I can only ask for so much, can I?). The plan is to be in the office for the first time, in a while, tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes – hopefully, I pass with flying colors. That will make me feel much better, or at least, normal!
As part of this process, I had an MRI done last Friday for 2 purposes. One was to confirm the diagnosis of the ruptured disc. The second was to provide good visuals for the radiologists who performed the epidural on me last Thursday. (For more on that, see my previous post: averbuch.net/2008/05/07/nervous-system-updated-and-out-of-whack/)
Since I had the MRI done at a different facility than the epidural (or my orthopedist) due to time efficiency, I was given a CD of the results to carry from place to place (doctor’s prefer to see the actual images over faxed copies, obviously). Joelle, who has never been trained on MRI reading but has much better knowledge on anatomy than I do, took a look through all of the images for me this morning and pointed out a couple that show the disc issue quite well. In the name of “there’s no privacy on the internet anymore”, I figured I might as well post them for people to see :)
A couple of notes while you are looking at my back:
- The MRI makes the body look so cartoony. It’s sort of funny looking.
- I circled the key parts in Red in both pictures.
- Click on the pictures to see the images larger.
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| Notice the bulging disc sticking out from the vertebrae and hitting the spinal cord. That’s my current “resting state” – even that’s not good. If you notice the other discs, they are all normally-placed – it is the one that is causing me issues. | Here’s a great shot of a “pain” period. Pretty clear that the disc is hitting spinal cord and the nerves. Ouch :) |
Tags: back pain, back surgery, mri, neurosurgeon