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L1 injuries, please help

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Chronic Pain
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Posted 9/5/2014 3:14 PM (GMT 0)
Those of you who have significant L1 issues, what are your major pain symptoms? Also, did the issues come about as part of an accident or non-accident related?

Thanks!
Posted 9/5/2014 4:42 PM (GMT 0)
Hi. My injury is at my C-1, brainstem, and entire upper torso however my mom injured her L-1 and sacrum around 13 years ago. She has had severe chronic pain since. She slipped and fell on ice and landed on her back. For many years she was on morphine and OxyContin for the pain. Four years ago she weened off the opiates and now controls the pain with medical marijuana tincture. (Some days the pain is too big for control with MM but she will not use anything else so she toughs it out.)

Like my injury, over the years her injury has only gotten worse, and she uses a wheelchair because walking hurts too much. She is confined to a recliner or bed. She describes her pain as "dull" and "aching" and sometimes "sharp" and "shooting". Sometimes it shoots down into her hips and her legs.

She has developed arthritis at the injury points which add to pain.

So far no doctors have had answers for her... I want her to see my osteopath neurologist tho she has to wait (he does not take insurance and the procedure takes a very long time and it can cause more disabling pain as the bones move).

How did you get your injury?
Posted 9/6/2014 11:52 AM (GMT 0)
Rhadarani, that's KIND of what happened to me. I slipped on the ice and fell on my tailbone/back. BUT, I also severely sprained my ankle at that time so I focused on taking care of that first, and didn't even connect the two injuries at first. I have no definitive diagnosis but EVERYTHING I'm feeling is related to the L1 dermatomes and it just keeps radiating farther and farther down my legs. The MRI only shows a moderate bulge there but, MRIs often miss things as we know.

Rhadarani, does your mom's pain develop and get worse or has it been at the same level since she fell?
Posted 9/6/2014 2:12 PM (GMT 0)
BLT are talking about the L5/S1 level which is the bottom disc area? I was confused with your question because L1 is higher up in the spine. Most injuries are at the L5/S1 area.
Posted 9/6/2014 2:39 PM (GMT 0)
Well, as Suzie said, L5 area may be it, closer to the sacrum. But my mom's injury worsened over time and I know her L1 slipped a disk now. My mom never got proper care. She could not get an MRi for years and she was on heavy medication and L&i doctors really screwed her over. She slipped at the school where she worked as a counselor. And the doctors told her she was having problems cause of her weight, not from the fall. Finally when she did get an MRi - it did not show any "injury" according to doctors. But over time it has gotten worse and worse. And now she has a slipped disk and arthritis has developed. I really want her to see my doctor, the osteopathic surgeon, who is correcting my injury, which also did not show as a typical "injury" on the first five scans.

You say you hurt your ankle first, and focused on that. I also so relate to that. It must happen a lot. One injury seems like it is what is most important, and other injuries are ignored. When I slipped and fell (landed backwards on my head and left shoulder, legs up the wall in a tiny room) - the head injury is what was focused on, for several years. I am in an injury court case, and the lawyers and their doctors only wanted to focus on the traumatic brain injury. Meanwhile, I had other issues going on with my upper spine. I even got an x-ray from a chiropractor that showed my c-1 in my skull out of place. The lawyers said it was "insignificant". Well, it turned out to be thee most significant thing, and that my whole upper torso was also out of place! And my structure has been literally choking itself at the jugulars and Venous. Since February I've been working with this amazing osteopathic surgeon who has been doing aggressive manipulation on my body structure. It is working. I really want my mom to be seen by him too, so he can help get her structure aligned. She wants to wait till next year, because the process itself is not immediate, it takes lots of resting, and it is painful, tho my pain level is better than last year and I am getting better.
Posted 9/7/2014 1:00 PM (GMT 0)
I'm really not sure, Suzi. I don't have a definitive diagnosis yet but my PCP really suspects L1 damage, even though what shows on the MRI says 'mild to moderate'. So he's asking my PM doc to try a nerve block there to see if there's any relief.

I fell on the ice in January and sprained my ankle badly. The only thing I did then was see an orthopedist, who of course focused on the foot injury, and I think I've had lumbar and thoraccic issues since then which nobody paid attention to. One thing, above all else, that makes me angry at doctors, is that they don't trust patients to know their own bodies until you make a big stink about something, then they think you're a pain. Ego ...it's all ego.

That said, has anyone had an experience where nerve damage had to be diagnosed through imaging other than an MRI? If you had another type of imaging, what was it?

Post Edited (Backtolife) : 9/7/2014 7:05:53 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 9/7/2014 3:36 PM (GMT 0)
BackToLife - the imaging I had was something else but I cannot remember what it's called other than it was a very special "one-of-a-kind" imaging with Dr. James Collins (radiologist) at UCLA. It is an MRi machine that has other video imaging technology. I was on the waiting list for six months before it was my turn. The imaging revealed what no other doctors could see. $12,000+ and my insurance is refusing to pay it. But it is worth it for me, it saved my life.
Posted 9/7/2014 5:34 PM (GMT 0)
An MRI will not reveal nerve problems, sometimes an EMG will but they are not 100% accurate, they are somewhere in the 75% range. If you are having low back pain it could be the L5/S1 area which as I said before is the bottom disc. L1 is higher up in the spine.
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