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Avatar universal

crunching & grinding back

hi there. some may recognise my name from a couple of posts i have put in here recently, though judging by the response not many have seen them or read them. anyway i want to mention that aswell as having all this pain in my back i now can feel and hear my back crunching and grinding as i walk and move around. i have been to the hospital recently to say about my extra pain and they took lots of x-rays and told me that it all looks ok and that there are no broken bones. ( i have osteoporosis aswell and in the past i have broken my vertebrae on two seperate occassions ). i never seem to get any answers when i go to the doctors or to the hospital and as i'm sure the people in here can appreciate that having to live day in and day out in pain is bad enough and if your like me then you are constantly getting questions pop up in your head about your pain.Then when you go and see a doctor because your in more pain than usual and have even more questions you still dont get any answers. when i was at hospital in the A & E department about my back pain the other day, they once again did x-rays and moved me about bending my legs etc...but again after 12 hours having been admitted and taken by ambulance to another hospital in the middle of the night, i was told the next day that i could go home and once again had not one answer to why i am in more pain. as i said at the beginning, i also hear crunching and grinding as i move and to me that is just not normal but according to the doctors they cant find anything wrong. does anyone else feel the same way about the medical proffesion?
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Avatar universal
Hi I am 16 years old and I have the same thing. Every time I move there are crunching sounds in by back so loud that they can be heard across the room. Whenever I'm sitting in the couch with my boyfriend any time I move just slightly there is horrible noises and grinding and he says that he can feel the Grinding or vibrations from it if I'm leaning against him. He tells me to stop crackingit but I don't know what else to do. The crunching itself doesn't really hurt but in general I'm in constant extremely bad chronic pain because of my whole back. I can't sleep, I can't stand at my job, and I can't sit at school and do my work. I e gone to the doctor and she says it's nothing which is annoying because that's not freaking normal I'm 16 and I feel 90. She tells me to try physical therapy but that never works for me and it's so slow that I don't notice a difference. So I've gone to the chiro and that takes care of it for a day or so... Maybe. But even then it's just a little better during that time. I've considered going for a deep tissue massage but because I'm only 16 and very petite (108lb and 5 3") everyone I talk to says that it' could really hurt me but at this point I'm willing to try anything. Every time I go to the doctor I have tried to be very assertive that something must be done and that I can't live like this anymore. It's been getting worse and worse for a period of about 2 years now. And I have never had any injury so anyone I go to thinks I'm just being a whiny teenager and exaggerating. But the thing is I'm not exaggerating when I'm crippled over in pain constantly trying to stretch crack or anyway relieve the horrible pain I'm in at any given second. And it's exhausting. I'm not exaggerating when most nights it's takes me hours and hours to fall asleep because every position hurts to no end. Pain mess don't help and I just can't live like this anymore. No one will do anything because I'm so young but I just can't even function. I can tell that even my parents also probably think I'm just being a drama queen but I don't know what else to do. This is horrible. Any suggestions on what I should do?
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1 Comments
Did you ever get explanation as to what was going on? Sounds like what I've been going through for couple years now with no answers...?
Avatar universal
sorry if i have given the impression that i'm angry that i'm not getting replies here in the forum. This is not what i was trying to say & i know that there are so many posts put on here daily i completely understand that people aren't going to always reply to every post. I was referring to my doctors & all the doctors i have seen in the past 5 & a half years. I think this forum, though i haven't taken full advantage of it yet, is an absolutely brilliant idea that you can chat with people that understand your pain & where your coming from instead of talking to family or friends that listen but don't know what it's really like. Don't get me wrong i love my wife, kids family & friends to bits but i feel like i go on about my pain so much that i can only imagine it must really **** them off to hear me always moaning about it one way or another. I tell myself daily not to go on about my pain today but then i will move or do something which will cause me great pain or discomfort & have to say something. So once again, sorry for giving out the impression that i wasn't getting replies here in the forum & i know that there are many, many more people on here with much worse problems  & pain than i have. Well till next time, cheers people & take things one day at a time.
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547368 tn?1440541785
I am so sorry that you're not getting any answers. it is so frustrating. My heart goes out to you.

I have crunching and grinding in my knees. The Orthopedic Surgeon told me it was two surfaces graded over one another. I do not have arthritis. I have fistulas in the underside of my patellas.

The "noise" is concerning but not painful. The knees are painful...but I notice no increased pain with the grinding and crunching. Do you or is it just pain all the time?

It would be my guess that it is due to arthritis and the degeneration of your spine. Surfaces are not as lubricated as they once were and surfaces no longer glide over one another....they crunch and grind.  At least that's my thoughts.

Have you tried making a list of questions when you see a physician? I've actually handed the short list, two or three questions to my Physician. I've asked the my questions be answered. It has worked. You might want to try it.

I am sorry you feel your questions are not being addressed. I don't know how they were missed. Sometimes they fall to the bottom of the forum before they get answered. If that happened I apologize. I will take a look and see if I can find the one you are referring to.

We do value your posts and are happy that you have joined us. I hope you'll get better answers from your physicians. Be assertive and come right out and ask the question, if they don't answer it...ask again.  

Peace,
~Tuck
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Avatar universal
I can sympathize with you about the medical profession. I'm not sure if you've read any of my post but I'm pretty pissed off at every doctor I have right now. Also I can hear my spine cracking when I move around also but for me it feels good. It feels like it's relieving pressure. When my spine grinds that does not feel good. I've had 3 injections and non of them have done anything. I'm too young for surgery. And I'm getting nowhere with anything.
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Avatar universal
first of all thankyou for your reply. i can totally agree with you that ( in my personal experience ), the medical treatment i have recieved in the past 5 years since my accident ( falling off the back of a lorry ), has been terrible. for the first 18 months to 2 years , every time i went to hospital or saw a new doctor about my back pain i would be told that the previous doctor i had seen was wrong and that it was this and i needed these pills or this treatment. this just went on for about 4 years when i was due to have an injection in my back under a special camera so they could see exactly where they had to inject. at the time this was recommended i told the doctor that suggested it that i had already had this done but he didn't want to listen to me. i had to wait 9 long months for this appointment for the injection, ( 9 more months of wasted time and still in lots of pain ). i went to the hospital on the day of this appointment and i was booked in and told to put on a hospital gown. the doctor was looking through my notes before seeing me and when i was called in to see her she said that i had already had this done and there was no point in doing it again. i agreed with her and she then told me that looking through my file ( which by now was getting really thick with paperwork, as you can imagine ), it was suggested by a doctor i had seen right back at the beginning of my treatment for a bad back that he would perform a spinal fusion but wanted a bit more investigation first. this was the first time i had been told that an operation had been suggested. i was referrered back to that doctor and he wanted to do an injection into my back and if i had any relief then depending on the level of relief he may operate. well it had some relief and i had the operation. my point is that had this all been sorted properly i could've had it done about 3 years earlier.
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Avatar universal
first of all, thankyou for your reply. i didn't go to my doctor first because of my previous history with my osteoporosis and the fractures. if i went to my doctor she would just tell me to go to A & E anyway as they dont have any way of doing an x-ray at the doctors and that was clearly what was needed. in regards to what you say about having a more herniated disc on the right side yet you suffer from more pain on your left side. well i have had a similar experience when i told the doctor at the hospital that i had more pain higher up than where they had operated on my back ( i had a spinal fusion 2 years ago ). it was just dissmissed for a long time with him just telling me that it was the pain radiating. as you can imagine i was pretty angry when i finally got them to do an x-ray and they discovered that i had a fractured vertebrae.
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Avatar universal
Nez,

I'm sorry your having all that pain.  I know my mother had her care in England and some of her care before she passed away (I felt) wasn't sufficient and felt the doctors weren't sure what they were doing and I'm sorry you feel that your getting passed around from one area to the other.  Especially when you are in terrible pain, that can not help at all.  I just wanted to say we are here for you, I hope you get some answers soon, I have read your posts, so please keep posting, welcome to our forum and we are glad to have you one here!
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Avatar universal
I did read your last post and I was planning on responding, but I ended up getting up because of the pain and not sitting back down.  
I'm sorry to hear about your ridiculous hospital ordeal.  I am surprised, though, they did more for you than I have ever had done when I went in in extraordinary pain.  I have asked for them to run tests, etc, and they just tell me to see a doctor.  Sometimes they will give me a shot of something, maybe, but sometimes they just say "Why didn't you go to your doctor?"  Even when it's 6 pm on a Saturday and they doctor is obviously not open.  
I think the best thing to do to find the "route of the pain" is to see a good neurologist or orthopedist.  That way they can order the right tests and go over the results with you there. Although they don't always find out what's wrong then, either.  
I have been told by one neuro-surgeon that someone my age shouldn't feel so much pain from a few herniated discs.  They also think that because the disc affecting the right side is more herniated than the one affecting the left, and because most of the pain is on the left side, that I must be over-exagerating or out-right lying.  
I hope that you're able to figure out why your pain is the way it is and what's going on to cause it.  Unfortunately I have found that the medical profession doesn't always care much about why we're in pain.
I definetly share your frustration.
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1 Comments
I am sorry to hear you are having pain. I have been in some amount of pain for approx 20 years now what with falling, fracturing, having surgeries and having chronic back and hip and nerve pain. For me the best way for managing my pain is to work with my primary care physician or pain clinic where i have access to medications, physical therapy and consults to specialists when needed. Going to Emergency rooms for treatment of chronic pain management issues rarely works out well as even when you are treated for pain with injections or narcotics it is only a temporary fix for a long term problem.  The emergency room does not always know the difference between you and a drug addict who is seeking pain medicines, especially when imaging and tests don't support your claims, and for that reason it is best to have a doctor treating you who gets to know you and treats your specific issues. as we age or get injured, it is hard to deal with living in a body that is hurting us when we are just trying to live. I hear you. Good luck on your journey and I hope you find relief from your pain.
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