[Tatonka_usn]

Thanks for the feedback! With my symptoms continuing/progressing, and my civilian insurance with Blue Cross FEP having started back up (as of 1 October), I did an end-run around the VA (useless, as expected) to obtain imaging of my neck. After seeing me last week, my primary care physician ordered a c-spine xray series, and provided a referral to have an MRI (without contrast) done. As I expected, the former didn't really show anything of relevance, merely confirming there were no breaks (shocker). Went for the latter on Wednesday evening, and have already received the official read-out (though I had a pretty good idea from the CD they burned for me what was going on). According to the report....

The cervicomedullary junction and the cord appear normal in signal, without evidence of Chiari I malformation. The vertebral body heights are normal without acute fracture. There is no evidence of acute inflammatory facet athropathy. The marrow signal intensity of the bones are normal.

Multi-level mild disc degeneration is noted.
Segmental analysis as below:

At C2-C3: No herniation or stenosis
At C3-C4: No herniation or stenosis
At C4-C5: Minimal disc osteophyte, unchanged
At C5-C6: Minimal central canal and bilateral foraminal crowding, from osteophyte, unchanged
At C6-C7: Mild disc osteophyte, unchanged
At C7-T1: No herniation or stenosis

Impression:
No evidence of focal disc herniation, with degenerative changes as noted above.

This is pretty much in line with my (layman's) read-out of the MRI images... having looked at enough of these over the 10+ years of my lumbar issues to understand lateral views. It's also pretty consistent with the last cervical MRI I had, back in January (when I first noticed some numbness in my right thumb...which eventually faded). That said, my symptoms are much more pronounced at this point, and have become gradually worse over the past 4 or 5 weeks (to the point I'd almost consider surgery IF it is an option).

The one curious thing I noted from the official read-out was the mention of osteophytes at several levels....verbiage which has never appeared before. Is this something of immediate concern, especially given the fact that I'm much more symptomatic than at any point earlier (increased pain in my neck, radiating down my shoulder in the arm....as far as my elbow...coupled with increasing tingling in most of my fingertips)? As this is all new for me, any thoughts would certainly be appreciated....