Two questions

[ans]

Hi. Enjoying this post-Holiday time?

I have some questions that confuse me. Any help is appreciated.

(1) I have early morning pain, greatly exacerbated by standing up. I have DDD and some nerve root compression so this stenosis/pressure makes sense. However, my PM doc told me that I'm a "spondy" - but this was never revealed on an MRI readout nor by a doc.

(2) Are morning pains exacerbated by standing equally definitive of DDD/stenosis *and* spondylethesis?

(3) Is it easy for a doc to look at my films to determine if I'm a spondy? (Reason being: if so, this could rule me out for an ADR at that level).

Thanks - Allan

[dmh]

Ans,
My MRI's said the same thing-no indication of spondy. When I saw Dr. Yue he did extension/flexion xrays he said there was a very, very slight amount of slipage and it was nothing to write home about. So there was some correlation b/w the two. I might be totally wrong, but aren't flexion/extension xrays the best way to rule in/out spondy?? I've not done any research on spondy since it does not seem to be a problem for me. So . . . you can probably disregard this post

I was thinking about your post on another thread re: s2/s3 discs-I was under the impression that those auto-fused at a very early age so they did not really come into play with the domino effect. Again, I cannot remember where I heard that but it rings a bell in the back of my mind.

Sorry to hear you might have some spondy and thus you may not be an ADR candidate. Do you know why spondy is a "rule-out" factor?

Glad you are gettin some relief with the patches. They've never been offered to me, maybe b/c I have mostly nerve pain and not too much back pain.

Happy 4th.
Ciao
DMH

[annapurna]

ADR is not designed to have any resistance to the forces that lead to spondy. If you had an ADR with advanced spondy the vertebrae would probabvly still remain misaligned, if you could even get it in place to begin with.

[ans]

Thanks dmh and Annapurna for your replies. I'll check if S2-S3 are auto-fused as this seems impt.

I was told that I'm a spondy and the PM doc gave me a simple visual that one vertebra is not parallel with the one on top of it. Odd I was never told this and my dx for PT says spondy. I wonder if this is "subluxation". Will check if minor spondy - if true, does not r/o arthorplasty. It does not seem benign as if misaligned, there could be central canal stenosis imo.

That's our route: we are our own caretakers.

Be well, ans