Ellen's MRI Report

[Guest guest]

Ellen has posted her MRI report at this site. She also sent it to me in an email. Here is the bulk of my response:Ellen,Let

me tell you what it says most loudly and clearly: No one is looking at the sagittal plane! -- at least as far as I can tell, anyway. Not with an eye to determining whether a sagittal deformity could play a role in your problems . . . . As far as I can tell from reading the report you included, your spine is fairly typical of spinal columns that have been through earlier

fusion with instrumentation. You were left with relatively few vertebrae to carry the whole load for all the vertebrae the fusion decommissioned, so to speak. Under such circumstances, all of the arthritic deterioration, etc., is simply par for the course. And yes, it's enough to cause severe, relentless pain, for which you should be seeking and taking advantage of the best pain management program you can

find. There is no reason to go on suffering when there are so many interventions that can help you. Even if you have revision surgery, it may not help your pain much if at all. Some people get entirely cured, and others -- I am a prime example -- seem to hurt more after each surgery (despite considerable aesthetic and structural improvement). If you aren't ready, I'm not going to push you -- it took me six or seven years to find my way to decent pain care personnel. But what they did for me totally changed my life.

OK, but back to your MRI.

Did they analyze your sagittal balance at all? If nothing else, you need a plain old x-ray -- not necessarily an MRI -- on which your specialist can perform the roughly indicative

"plumbline test" for flatback syndrome. (See the SRS White Paper on this method, archived with the stuff at our website.).It's reassuring that you don't have stenosis, although that one bulging disc sounds as if someone had better keep an eye on it. All of the pathology described is what most of our doctors found on most of our

x-rays when we got symptomatic years after our H.-rod-fusions. (My lower lumbar disks were such a mess that one of them no longer existed -- it was gone.) I had also fused naturally in the course of all the deterioration, leaving me with no flexibility in the lumbar spine -- Dr.

Rand in Boston established this with pre-op bending films and therefore

decided to fuse all the way to the sacrum. I was very happy to hear that was his plan, since more conservative fusions at this stage usually

just mean you have to go back a few years later to get the rest fused.

No doubt the accident has in some way compounded things for you, although I don't see any mention of this in the report. The one thing that's kind of hazy is that metal artifact. At first I thought they were

talking about the hook itself, then later on it sounded as if they were

talking about a separate entity -- some piece of metal that somehow lodged in your back when you were injured? Some stray bit of hardware? I

couldn't even hazard a guess. You should probably have the CT scan if they think this will facilitate diagnosis. But -- I don't know how often

I am going to end up saying this, probably putting you to sleep with the monotony of my refrain -- this is all somewhat useless, or at least is worrisomely incomplete, without

a complete report on your sagittal mechanics.

Let me see if I can answer some of your specific questions better by interpersing my answers with your text. Also, would you kindly

consider forwarding this reply, incorporating your email, to the Feisty

group? Not only am I totally not an MD; I am just one little ole person

who has picked up a scattering of factoids relating to scoliosis and flatback. I think you want the group in on this -- someone may well pick

up on something that's eluding me and give you enormously better advice

than I can manage. In fact, I would strongly urge you to send your future emails as posts to the Feisty group rather than as personal emails to me. I think you are likely to get a more comprehensive and helpful response -- honest!

[Please note: This is generally good advice for everyone in this group. I didn't realize at the time that Ellen had posted to the group as well as emailing me. A number of people send me emails from this group, and sometimes they are very involved. I wish I had time to do all these emails justice, but my life has gotten very busy and hectic lately with various crucial to-dos, family situations in need of resolution, and goals I need to meet as part of my own self-care. I also wish I had all the helpful and definitive answers people need so badly. It's true I've been with this flatback fiasco for many years now, but what I don't know is so much more vast than anything I do know! So often I feel I have just annoyed or disappointed people with my attempts to help. If you've ever spent two or three hours trying to compose a halfway informed, thoughtful, and useful answer to a personal email from someone in serious pain or despair, and you've gotten back a cursory "thanks" at most, that might give you some sense of how I feel at times. I devote so much time to this group, and I wish so much I could give every member exactly what she needs, but sometimes I might give someone one or two things she needs and other times I probably bomb out completely. I hope you can be patient with me, and I hope you will make full use of the truly phenomenal resource you have in this remarkable and deeply compassionate support group, with its collective experience down in the trenches and its hard-won insight and wisdom.] OK, here goes:

Hi ,I

picked up my MRI report to bring to Dr. Antonnacci on Wednesday. It doesn't say the rod is out of place so maybe I was looking at it the wrong way. But it still doesn't sound good. I am going to reprint the

jist of the report maybe you can translate what I can't so I can be prepared on Wednesday. I always say knowledge is power.

moderate levorotatory scoliosis of the lumbar spine(I think that means the shape of the curve?) Sever dextrorotatory scoliosis of the upper lumbar and lower throracic spine (same thing only it is 2 curves)

Yes, this is simply an anatomic description of your two curvatures -- levorotatory

referring to the lower curve's rotation to the left, and dextrorotatory

denoting the rightward rotation of the upper curve.

metallic artifact is demonstated in the region of lanina of L2 consistent with location of the

inferior hook in the expected location at the level of the lamina.(the picture is blur but that is where the bottom hook should be right)I

assume so. They're saying here that at the point where they expect the hook to be, there is, indeed, a metallic artifact. What they mean by "artifact" is a little fuzzy, however. Is it or is it not the intact hook one would expect to find at that location? If it is, fine. If not, is it a piece of a hook that has broken off, and if so, where is the rest of it? Or is it something else entirely?

There appears to be solid posterior bony fusion extending from T11-- L1 ( Harrington Rod)"Appears"

is the operative word here. Don't quote me, but it's my understanding that you can tell the fusion is solid -- everything has knit properly --

only by operating

Relationship of the bony fusion to L2 is not clearly evaluated due to metallic artificat. If there is a clinical need to further evaluate the fusion, then a CT scan should be obtained. ( There may be a problem with the lower hook just a guess on my part what do you

think?)

I'm not sure that's what they're saying. The first sentence is quite obscure to me-- what on earth do they mean by "relationship of the bony fusion to L2"?

I think they're trying to say they can't get a clear view of the whole fusion (or nonfusion) because that "artifact" is in the way, blocking their view. I can't wrest any more meaning than that from this prose. I would hope the doctor you're

seeing on Wednesday can translate some of this more adeptly than I can,

as well as giving you all the information he gleans from examining you and your films. In my experience, radiology reports -- I assume that's what this is -- can leave something to be desired. ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY DON'T EVEN MENTION THE SAGITTAL PLANE!!!!

There is disc degeneration at L2-L3, L4-L5, and L5-S1 with loss of normal high signal in the intervertebral disc on sagittal T2 weighted sequence. ( I get the degeneration but don't what the rest means....except I think it might explain why my pants are all too long and I had to take them up an inch or two

this past year)Well, you're ahead of me in that case! I don't get the relationship to your pants length, though of course you've almost surely lost some height with all that disc deterioration. But that "loss of normal high signal on sagittal T2 weighted sequence" is some kind of lingo I'm not familiar

with. The word "sagittal" has perked me right up, though. Maybe they did give a nod to your sagittal aspect -- kind of a distant hello, and let's not carry this any farther than a fleeting mention?

There is minimal disc bulging at L4-L5. There is a moderat facet joint osteoarthritis at L5-S1. ( I understand this got it from the car accident in 2002)

Well, I'm afraid you would have gotten it -- the arthritis, at least -- without having been in a car accident. This sounds like what

thousands of us look like on our MRIs.

There

is a hemangioma of bone in the S2 vertebral body. ( I look this up said

it was a begin tumor no body seems upset except me!)

Try to pin down the doc on this when you see him next Wednesday. You have a right to complete and clear information.

There are subchondral degenerative changes in the endplates at L2-L3 and to a lesser extent L4-L5 and L5-S1( Have no idea what this means)

You might want to get hold of some good medical illustrations of the spine and review your spinal anatomy. But this is just more deterioration from the unbalanced load bearing, osteoarthritis, etc.

Impression:

Scoliosis No congenital or acquired vertebral body anomaly is demonstrated to explain the scoliosis. There is no evidence of of neurofibroma.

There is no evidence of menigocele.There is minimal dis bugling at L4-L5. There is moderate facet osteoarthitis at

L5-S1. There is no disc herniation or spinal stenosis.Although

the distal hook hook of the harrington rod is not clearly visualized secondary to metallic artifact, it appears to be in the expected location at the level of of the L2 lamina.

Well if you get chance tell me what you think..... I think it says my lower back is just a mess! Do you think this explains why I am in such pain?

Yes.

ThanksEllen I

only wish I had more to offer you, Ellen. This is a poorly, possibly hastily written report that no one had time to proofread let alone copy edit. The transcriptionist didn't even put it through a spell check program as far as I can tell. But all that aside, I don't think it sheds

much light at all on the question of whether all of your spinal problems could be confounded by a flatback condition secondary to your Harrington rod. Maybe you are one of the lucky ones -- I suppose its entirely possible that you have not developed flatback syndrome. They used to say that we were o.k. if our fusions terminated above L- 4/L- 5.

Mine ended around L-2/L3 and resulted in the most severe and grossly deforming flatback syndrome. But everyone is different, and we have had a

couple people in the group who say they have no sign of flatback after

years with Harrington rods.

In any case, I hope you will soon get a definitive diagnosis and some expert and trustworthy advice on how to proceed from here. Best,

From: Rasche <elizabethrgonzalez@...>

Ellen Mchugh <castlegregory.clan@...>Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2011 1:55 PM

Subject: Re: Really in intense pain & getting to a doctor today.Hi, Ellen --I'm so glad to hear you're feeling much better.No,

I don't think your doctor gets it. Dr. Errico certainly will, from what

I've heard about him. As I wrote previously, I don't know anything about Dr. Taddanino and had not heard the name before you mentioned him.

How did you happen to hear about him?

I tend to think it will be a waste of your time to go to just any neurosurgeon. This kind of thing seems to happen all the time in our group -- people ending up with doctors who don't know beans about scoliosis, let alone flatback syndrome.

Has this doctor you just consulted seen your X-rays with the displaced rod? I can't imagine anyone seeing that and telling you it has

no bearing on your current pain. Does she have any other patients with scoliosis histories? Does she realize that you can't diagnose any pain in a scoliosis patient without, at the least, viewing whole-spine x-rays

including a sagittal view? If you do get to a qualified specialist like

Dr. Errico eventually, I think you will find that he looks at those films, first and foremost, and that he is likely to perform the "plumbline test" recommended by an SRS white paper and follow-up article(s) in Spine, to measure your sagittal balance.

When you finally do get a proper assessment from a specialists in the adult sequelae of Harrington rod surgery for scoliosis, it would be nice if your husband could accompany you. He might realize this is a serious situation. My husband always made light of things -- still does -- but once he'd been to a scoliosis specialist with me and heard a knowledgeable explanation of my condition, he was always very supportive

(at least in that area of my life).

When I was trying to decide on the best revision surgeon for my flatback syndrome, the surgeon at the top of my list for New York was Dr. Boachie. He is world-famous and a consummate surgeon whom everyone seems to love, although he seems to handle health insurance differently from other doctors, unless that's just a rumor.

Well, for now you're feeling better, and that's good news. Thanks for letting me know the latest. Hang in

there.Best, at 5:41 PM, Ellen Mchugh <castlegregory.clan@...> wrote:

Hi ,

Well I had a good rest last night I stayed in bed from about 6

to 6 a full 12 hours. I woke feeling okay not wonderful but much better. I saw the doctor and she referred me to a neurosurgeon she doesn't think any of my pain has anything to do with scoliosis or the harrington rod. I realized midway thru the exam she just wasn't getting

it. She prescribe flexall for the pain. I can take motrin or aleve. In 2008 I had a bleeding ulcer from taking excedrin for my migraines. I lost a lot of blood and my heart stopped in the er for the blood lost. I had a 5 cm hole in my stomach from the ulcer. So a lot of the over the counter stuff is out for me. The doctor said the

neurosurgeon might give me steriod

or coristone injections. I

am just going to try to hang tight..... till I get the appt to see the scoliosis specialist one on 10/10, and the 10/13 I am going to try later

tonight to look up Peri Basel doctor's number maybe I can call for appt

and get in to see him sooner he is at beth Israel. I will look back at

your list. But it is my luck that both Taddanino and Errico are on vacation now (so is my regular doctor)

I do have a somewhat supported family but I am the rock of the family. I am the one who keeps everyone

together the caretaker. I love my husband dearly and he truly loves me..... I just don't think he has a clue as to how I am feeling. He is trying to make light of it and it making me more frustrated.

I have just come thru a very difficult year in

that I have taken care of my older brother who was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He had 80 percent of his stomach removed and is doing wonderful. I was with him every step of the way and it was grueling. He has no one but me. I have a wonderful son who just turned 18 and is now

a freshman in college. He is trying his best but you know how teenagers

can be....

Basically I just don't think any of them get how much pressure I am under and how much pain I have been suffering with. I go to therapy and my counselor suggested meeting with

them and having a discussion. Which I think is great but right now I just want to make it to Friday so I can rest from work.

I will let you know if I have any success in getting an appt earlier than what I have now. I will make the appt with the neurosurgeon just to see

what he says but I seriously doubt I will let him give me any injection

let alone surgery. I think the doctor just didn't get it.Ellen

From: Rasche <elizabethrgonzalez@...>

Ellen Mchugh <castlegregory.clan@...>Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 12:03 PM

Subject: Re: Really in intense pain & getting to a doctor today.Hi, Ellen --I'm

so sorry to hear what a rough day you had yesterday. It sounds as

if today isn't going a whole lot better for you. I know what that's like (although, mercifully, I was responsible for only one kid -- my own

-- not for 32!). It can be horribly discouraging, but please don't get too down -- there are answers for you out there (somewhere!), and there is genuine hope, at least once you get skilled attention from medical personnel you like and trust. You could use an ally or two in your school as well, if that's possible. I assume you may consider talking to

your union rep when you feel up to it, re disability leave or other possibilities.

I'm SO glad you're seeing a doctor today. I hope this doctor is one who has something useful to offer you. Please let us know what you find out, if you're up to corresponding after your appointment. (Remember that if anyone orders X-rays, you need the long kind that show the whole

spine.) You need a thorough diagnostic assessment, but in the meantime,

it sounds as if you need a good pain management program at the least --

possibly also some PT, if you're able to do any, and perhaps access to some massage therapy and a whirlpool. I currently take a warm-water aquatics class at a nationally accredited medical fitness center and head to the adjacent Jacuzzi immediately afterwards. Since I'm trying to

make ends meet on a very modest disability stipend, I got my estranged spouse to pay the monthly fee. Too bad I didn't have access to such a program before my revision surgery.

You didn't say if you live with family, or if you have people nearby

who can assist you. I sure hope you have some familial or neighborly support available in case you should need a helping hand. I also hope your trip to the doctor's office is not too drainining. Especially in the early days of my worseniing flatback syndrome, I found it helpful when a family member or good friend could accompany me to the doctor. (I

would try to arrange a ride with a calm, safe driver, although this may

not be too feasible if you're heading into Manhattan.) If I didn't quite get everything a hurried doc might say to me, I'd have "another pair of ears" to check with afterwards. Whenever I could, I also went in

to the doctor with notes and questions and took notes while I was there.

I found myself getting increasingly assertive, and increasingly committed to optimal self-care, as my condition progressed. If someone was overly busy, I would insist that he stay a minute more and answer all my questions. I don't take too kindly to anyone who assumes that his

time is more valuable than mine, and I no longer allow any MD to give me the old brush-off. As you may have discovered in your review of our message archives, there are people in our group who have heard the same old thing -- "Beautiful fusion, don't know why you're complaining of pain" -- from up to ten (10) ignorant docs, sometimes in various parts of the country. A physician who has not seen a sagittal view of your spine is in no position to tell you anything definitive about your condition, and is years behind in his Continuing Medical Education. Sadly, there are too many doctors like that still practicing medicine.

Hang in there, and stay hopeful -- I'm fairly sure you will soon have some options, especially in view of where you're located. (It might

not be a bad idea to get yourself to Beth Israel or NYU if you don't get satisfactory help today.) It's hard to keep researching and pushing for answers when you're this wiped out by pain, but take it one day at a

time and do what you can. You're in my thoughts . . . .

Best,On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 5:24 AM, Ellen Mchugh <castlegregory.clan@...> wrote:

Hi ,Yesterday

was the worst day of my life in regards to pain. I have never experience such pain. Every time I moved I was in pain. Imagine being in

a classroom with now 32 kids. I got a hold of my doctor's receptionist

and I am seeing one of his associates today. If I didn't I was planning on heading down to NYU or Beth Israel in NYC to go to there emergency room as the pain was really that bad. I had a good night sleep and feel better not great but better.

Ellen

From: Rasche <elizabethrgonzalez@...>

Ellen Mchugh <castlegregory.clan@...>Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2011 9:39 PM

Subject: Re: X Rays & some urgent questions...Hi, Ellen,I trust you won't mind if I repost this message, or part of it, at the Feisty site.

Please be sure to read to the bottom of this email -- for some reason my email program isn't formattting things quite right lately. I'm

concerned that this message may end up (like one of two I sent the other day) with a big space at the bottom or in the middle. So if you see any such space(s), kindly do not assume that you have reached the end at last, but

scroll down further just to be sure.

To respond first to the last item in your email: You have a right to

be teed off, that's for sure! Part of what keeps me going with our group and with any efforts I make to raise consciousness about the problems of adults with scoliosis histories is -- well, maybe not rage exactly, but definitely outrage. And I have had many, many private times

-- o.k., maybe a few more "public" times too -- of feeling overwhelmed by anger. I'm still working on giving my anger a pat on the head, so to speak, embracing it as something I need to be aware of and attentive to,

then trying to move on so it doesn't consume me or keep me from living a

reasonably gratifying life. My life bears almost no resemblance to the life I planned, the life I was living during the years I thought my spine was permanently "fixed." Like most everyone at the Feisty group, I

have had to make huge adjustments -- to a whole new deformity, new complications, unprecedented physical pain during

the early years of my flatback syndrome; to the loss of my previous career; to hugely reduced economic well-being; to bigtime destruction of

things like travel and an active "social" schedule. I am innately a very driven, ambitious person, yet I have had to live on Social Security

Disability since 1998.

Nonetheless, I refuse ever to accept a life that is smaller than the

one I envisioned. I refuse to think of myself as less capable than others, less able to accomplish great things, less anything. My life will be "different from," not "lesser than." I can empathize so much with other adults who are in the earlier stages of coming to grips with their newly apparent spinal problems after going through all that suffering at a time when other kids were busy being kids. It's just no fair. It's incredibly rotten luck. Much of it is a product of some surprisingly overconfident doctoring, in my personal opinion. I guess you could say that, as with any other calamity, who gets stuck with it is the luck of the draw. Still, it's very hard to get to some genuine acceptance of the whole thing. You need time to integrate it.It would be

asking an awful lot of any human being to accept these delayed or secondary spinal disasters and uncertainties without shock,

anger, fear, and a whole big bundle of other strong emotions. In fact, I

would worry about anyone who could take this stuff in stride. ("Hi, come on in. It's so good to see you again. How are you? What's new? Wow,

that's great! -- Give him my congratulations, will you? Oh, nothing much . . . Let's see, the kids got back to school o.k.. They seem to be adjusting. The garden is thriving -- I'll have to show it to you. Oh, yeah, and I just found out I'm turning into a hunchback. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? Some brownies?")

If it's any consolation (a very sad sort of consolation admittedly):

The SRS projected one million revision surgeries before they found out that the H. Rod was not the only culprit. It has to be well over a million now that people with Luque rods have "joined the party." So at least you and I are not alone in facing these ongoing problems with our spines. There's a whole generation of women (mostly women, a few men) whose scoliosis was severe enough to require fusions and casts and the whole nightmare, and who are only just realizing that they have substantial long-term problems as a result. No one seems to have anticipated any of this, least of all our surgeons. Somewhere back in our teens, a great many of us had that final appointment with the surgeon, often with our parents in tow. We remember what a celebratory day that was -- beaming faces, hearty handshakes. Yes, we had been through hell at a tender age, but it was all worth it, because now we

were cured for life!

But enough nostalgia. To address your most pressing concern: You know, I may be overreacting -- and I'll be interested to hear what others have to say -- but if I were you, I would do whatever it took to get an earlier rather than a later appointment with a specialist in adult deformities of people with surgical instrumentation. (I only hope that Dr. Taddonino is such a specialist -- that he has dealt with many cases of flatback syndrome and other secondary problems from previous scoliosis surgery.) If seeing the general physician's colleague

might get him or her to push, on your behalf, for an earlier spinal consult, I'd go for it. In any case, make sure that your X-rays and MRI have been forwarded to the spinal surgeon by now.

That said, I fear I'm as much at a loss as you are at the image of a Harrington rod that's now on the diagonal. (I assume this is on a posterior or anterior view of your spine, not a side-view.) I wonder if the rod is still attached to your spine at the bottom -- in fact, if it even could be. Originally there would have been a hook attached the the topmost vertebra and another attached to the bottommost vertebra of your

curvature, on the concave side of the curve, with the notched rod passing through each hook. After placing these hooks, your surgeon would

have moved the upper hook -- slowly and carefully -- to a higher notch on the rod, thus pulling the two ends of the rod apart and straightening

your curvature. This procedure, technically termed "distraction," is why you will sometimes hear your type of hardware referred to as a Harrington distraction rod. The process of distraction is often compared

to jacking up a car.

The H. rod was in use for some four decades, and during the last decade or so, additional fixation systems were sometimes used. You might

have had older or newer types of hooks. You might also have had additional fixation, e.g., in the form of sublaminar wiring at the lumbar end of the rod (particularly if your surgeon at the time said anything about using the Drummond system or Luque wires --not Luque rods). Barring further problems, all hardware would have remained

in place, initially supporting the solidifying of your fusion and later

having no function at all.

Do you know if you saw the rod correctly positioned on an X-ray as long as a year after your fusion? That might suggest that the fusion healed properly, accepting the graft material and forming solid new bone. If your rod popped out of position before this process was complete, you could be dealing with an entirely different situation -- as you would be if the rod changed position after a year or so, but without proper fusion having taken place. There are all kinds of possibilities. As a nonphysician, and as someone who has not seen your X-rays, I would be hard-pressed to venture even a wild guess as to what is going on -- but suffice it to say that whatever has happened or is currently happening with your rod does not sound routine! And it certainly seems reasonable to assume that your pain on the left is somehow related to the unusual current position of your rod. I'd like

to say that if the situation hasn't caused any massive damage or

extremely acute problems yet, it probably won't, but I don't think anyone other than the specialist could give you that assurance. In my experience, GPs (and the majority of spinal surgeons) may not have the precise expertise to assess such spinal films definitively.

Once again, I wish I had something more helpful to tell you. I hope you can get the answers you need very soon. You may also want to push for a diskette (once they're making them again) so you will always have your X-rays in your own possession. (We would certainly be interested to

see them too, if you care to share them. As you may have noticed, we have a mix of X-rays posted in our photos section, along with assorted snaps of some of our members, their families, and I believe a pet or two.) I'm pretty sure that your X-rays would be unique. That doesn't necessarily mean there's anything terribly wrong -- but I'm an incurable

Type A, and I think I would be agitating to find out ASAP, if only for my own peace of mind.

Once again, I hope you will keep us posted and will let us know as soon as you know anything more.Best,On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Ellen Mchugh <castlegregory.clan@...> wrote:

Hi ,First

off thanks for answering my questions so quickly and welcoming me to the group. I went today to get my MRI and X Rays for my visits back to my general doctor on the 27th, and then to taken them to Dr Taddonino Oct 10th and Dr. Errico Oct 13th .

Well I am sure I am like most scoliosis patients when we can sneak a peek and get a look we do.... Anyway I asked the X-Ray tech if I could have a copy of the X-Rays today

to show my husband. He said yes but the disc making machine was down..... but I had a chance to look at the X-Rays of my spine.

I am not a spine specialist but I do know something about Harrington rods. This

is what it look like the rod was placed on the upper right side of the spine where the top curve was (I think that was the thoracic curve) but as you look further down the spine the rod gradually crossed over to the lower left side of the spine. Sort diagonal across the lower half of the spine. Now I know orginally the rod was always straight down on

the right hand side. This probably means trouble but what kind I don't

know. It would certainly explain the pain I have been having on the left side of left leg and hip.

My question to you... is should I wait to see my general doctor. He is on vacation I could see his colleague. Should I try to speed up the appointment with the specialists.

Please be blunt with me. For me knowing is better than not knowing. I am also going to post this question to the general group. But I already

admire and respect you commitment to helping all of us who suffer with this.... it is just so sad. For many of us it struck at a time in our lives as teenagers when we should have been carefree and happy. Now it is coming back out of nowhere again at another time when we should be enjoying the fruits of our hard work etc....

It really tee''ssss me off.Ellen

Reply ForwardEllen Mchughcastlegregory.clan@...Show detailsAdsSpinal Stenosis TreatmentMinimally Invasive Surgery. Get Relief from Spinal Stenosis NowBonati.comSpinal Fusion