Alcie please read

Thanks for the note, Susie.

My problem with my neurosurgeon is (hopefully was) his helpers who are burned out. He was, until he moved last month, head of NS in one of the university hospitals. He's now starting a NS unit at a smaller but very good community hospital, actually one that I prefer to go to and where most of my regular doctors are.

He's possibly the smartest person I know, just very conservative. He's really very nice and caring, but as you know, surgeons quit treating once the cutting's done. Maybe there is no surgery that will help me, but I would rather he told me himself.

Yes, there was the usual CT after the myelogram, and I have the report. To partially summarize 3 pages:

The radiologist wrote that all my lumbar discs are bulging, and 4 neural foramina (the holes the nerves come out) are narrowed bilaterally, from bone spurs (osteophytes), facet hypertrophy (overgrowth), etc. There's also some retrolisthesis.

In the neck there's neural foraminal narrowing at C4-5 and C5-6, which is where the worst neck pain is located. There is "underfilling" at C7 and 8, which I presume means some narrowing going on there, since the dye couldn't get in. C2,3 are fused across the facet joints - not surgically. C3 is fused to C4 surgically.

Thoracic disc bulges at T8-9 and 9-10 are contacting and flattening the cord. T8, 11, and 12 were crushed and now show "height loss," and Schmorel's nodes, and there's flattening of the cord at T12.

There's a whole lot of other stuff, but you see why I didn't believe the former office help when she said I'm "just fine" and "it's just your fibromyalgia."

I've been seeing my pain docs for this for over a year now, getting injections, nerve ablations, and mild pain meds. I'll see the main pain doc this month for new prescriptions (what a nuisance) and maybe another injection or something.

I'm mainly thinking of getting the second opinion from the ortho spine surgeon just because he has a good reputation. I wouldn't let him do complex neurosurgery, and I don't think he'd really want to. I'm not totally sure what he does. I mostly want to know what's causing all this pain and what are my options.

Thanks for being out there and for caring.

I'll be talking to my pain doc next week. He hasn't seen my CT/myelo results, but he'll read the report when I go in for injection.

I'm putting off as many doc visits as possible because new insurance will cover the visits with no co-pays. At this time of year I have to save every penny for heating bills.