Admitting diagnosis myelopathy on MRI?

I was looking at the information for my MRI and it says admitting diagnosis myelopathy. Does that mean the neurologist is just checking for that or is that my actual diagnosis?? And if thats what the diagnosis is, if the MRI came back normal then obviously it would be wrong, right? I don't have any reports or results on the MRI. I don't see the doc till Oct 5th. I just saw the admitting diagnosis said myelopathy and wanted to know what that meant. Well I mean I know what myelopathy itself is but yeah.... My doctor specializes in MS (and Sleep Disorders which is odd) but I mean I don't know if he can actually know I have myelopathy without the MRI but I was just curious.

Any help is appreciated thanks!

[Quixotic1]

A doctor can know for sure that a person has myelopathy when there are findings on the exam that are only or primarily caused by lesions in the spinal cord.

Myelopathy = pathology or disease in the spinal cord.

Some of these symptoms could be hyperreflexia, Hug, localized spasticity, urinary urge incontinence or retention, etc.

There is a health page on spinal cord lesions:

http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Multiple-Sclerosis/Spinal-Cord-Lesions/show/764?cid=36

Hope this helps.

Quix

[supermum_ms]

I think you'll find that the neurologist was investigating myelopathy because thats what he thought was the most likely dx, admitting diagnosis is not a dx but to investigate for a dx of, to rule in or out.

Cheers......JJ

[michelleric]

Unfortunately  I think you will have to wait for your appt to get the results.  It could be they were "looking" for myelopathy, and that was what the doc had to put down to get the MRI done.

I am just assuming, and I am also assuming you had a cervical MRI as well?

I was DX with Cervical Myelopathy after my MRI and went to a neuro surgeon that my neuro referred me too.  I did have surgery for that Jan 09.

Good luck with your appt,
Michelle

[tjs86]

Yes I had a cervical mri as well. I stopped trying to "analyze" the images lol. Its just the admitting dx that caught my attention. I kind of figured he was more just looking for or trying to rule it out or something. Thanks guys. :-)

[Zila]

tjs86,
Your discharge summary will tell you  the dx for what the dr was treating you.  Your admitting dx is usually the symptoms and signs that you have presented initially.

[Quixotic1]

A doctor can know for sure that a person has myelopathy when there are findings on the exam that are only or primarily caused by lesions in the spinal cord.

Myelopathy = pathology or disease in the spinal cord.

Some of these symptoms could be hyperreflexia, Hug, localized spasticity, urinary urge incontinence or retention, etc.

There is a health page on spinal cord lesions:

http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Multiple-Sclerosis/Spinal-Cord-Lesions/show/764?cid=36

Hope this helps.

Quix

[Quixotic1]

And.....

if the suspicion was really high for myelopathy, then the thoracic spinal cord also needs to be imaged.  The thoracic cord is difficult to image and it is the sight of the fewest lesions, but there is no rationale for omitting it.  You can have thoracic lesions and not have lesions in the cervical cord.

Q

[tjs86]

Thanks Quix. The doctor did say something about my reflexes. He followed that up with talking about damage or disease to the spinal cord. He didnt order a thoracic mri so my guess is he is maybe just ruling stuff out? Though he is an MS specialist. Did i mention that already? I cant remember. Not that its necessarily relevant but.... I am pretty obese so if the thoracic cord is hard to do maybe he was afraid my weight would compromise it further.