Back update.

Posted on February 5, 2009

I went to a specialist today for my back and received the following explanation:

If you look at the above xray, you can see that the rods in my back don’t come down to the last two vertebrae. They did this because I was twelve when I had the surgery and they wanted to make sure I still had some flexibility and some room to grow (although, they were pretty sure I wasn’t going to grow much more, they didn’t want to take any chances.) As you can see from the xray, I still have a curvature which wasn’t corrected by the rods because of this decision.
Well, those two vertebrae have been acting as a fulcrum for the rest of my back, which is putting undue stress on them, and the discs in between these two vertebrae are breaking down. This is causing premature arthritis in that area of my back. (The doc says, “Everybody gets it, sooner or later.”) For me, its sooner. The last two vertebrae are, on occasion, “separating” which is what is causing the sharp pain I am feeling in my hip.
Sooooo….my options at this point are:

1. To do nothing, deal with the pain, and try to strengthen my core muscles (means working out, probably joining a gym.)
2. Get an injection into the area that is causing me pain, which will help numb that area for a limited amount of time. And during that time, hit the gym and strengthen my muscles, and hopefully hold off #3 for awhile longer.
3. Surgery. They will put two pins on either side of the vertebrae essentially “fusing” them together which will stop them from sliding and hopefully put an end to the pain. Now, I will have to do this eventually. But, the doc feels that since my pain isn’t debilitating that this would be premature. But, he did caution me that I will have to have it done eventually.

And, that’s where we’re at.
I will make a call to another doctor to get the injection, then start hitting the gym and try to stregthen everything up. And then its just a waiting game.