it didn’t work; let’s try it again

The MRI report identified a “herniated” disc and an annular tear amid bulging discs. The orthopedic surgeon says they’re just bulging discs and that “herniation” could mean many things including “bulging” discs. Mind you, this is a phone conversation and I still haven’t gone in yet.

The really frustrating thing is when he first spoke to me, he was asking about my neck and the ruptures in the MRI. I said, I never had an mri on my neck and I that the issues involved my lower back and debilitating chronic sciatica. He apologized and then started talking about the bulging discs asserting that he needs to find out what is causing me pain because these balging discs shouldn’t’t be.

I told him about my mri report two years ago asking about the L5-S1 being desiccated. I am no doctor, but from all of the medical journals and articles I have read in the last two years, a desiccated disc doesn’t just get better. He didn’t answer my question. He just went back to the subject of bulging discs and suggested a steroid injection like the one the previous doctor did a year ago–that didn’t work. I told him I had one of those last year and that didn’t work. He asked, “Where did you have it?” I answered “in the lumbar L3-L4 level.”

“Well, I want to do it in the L5-S1.” He added that that looked like the possible problem area. Maybe he meant that he wanted to either confirm it or rule it out, but what he said was, “I don’t know what’s causing your

Pain.” He also denied that any of my discs were dehydrated.

I asked the radiological tech if I could see the images both of the times I had KRIs and they both let me see them, explaining to me what each body part was and nothing else because they’re not allowed.

This last time, I noticed that the L4-L5 and L5-S1 were a very dark gray and wavy looking compared to the bright white and rounded looking ones. Again, I am not a doctor or even a radiological tech, but I’m not an idiot either.

A research session taking twenty minutes or less revealed information about dark looking discs being dehydrated, especially in the subjects of degenerated discs, degenerative disc disease or dark disc disease (all the same thing). It’s not really a “disease” though. All it means is the discs lost fluid and elasticity/durability and are more prone to ruptures, tears, bulges, protrusions (herniation), etc and narrowing of the vertebrae/spinal canal are likely to occur.

Herniation and narrowing doesn’t cause pain in and of itself unless pressure is being placed on the nerve(s) in the spinal column causing radicular pain (sciatica for the lower back, specifically). It’s even worse if it causes dysfunctions (ie foot drop, which I don’t have), weakness, lack of reflexes and sensation (ie numbness) and especially digestive issues (such as deprecating or urinating without any warning or being unable to do those things normally, I.e. taking forever to go because it doesn’t all come out at once like it used to).

So my MRI revealed dark and misshapen discs (L4-L5 – L5-S1), I’ve had sciatic pain and sensations since before the first MRI (proceeding repeated lower back injuries since I at least ten years ago but I think longer).

But he doesn’t know what’s causing me pain. He wants to find out what’s causing me pain and assign another steroid injection on top of possible PT. Again. This didn’t solve the problem before.

This was over the phone and he started off talking about somebody else (the cervical herniations) and not me before I corrected him.

He had pretty good ratings in health grade (4.6 out of 5 stars) with scores of reviews verses the previous specialist (1.2 stars), but the phone conversation raised some red flags for me. Should I ask my regular doctor for a referral to someone else or stick with this one? I know the guy is human, but these mistakes seem too huge to ignore to me.