Spinal lesions

[sal46]

My symptons came on gradually for many years with elbow pain, shoulder and back pain. I avoided carrying bags of groceries, used a shopping cart to carry my purse, ceased reaching due to intense shooting pain in my arm. In the last year, I woke as many as 6 times nightly to find a comfortable position to sleep due to shoulder upper arm and neck pain; I literally fell on the bed from the shooting pain in my arm when I raised it to get dressed. I couldn't reach my right arm with out a terrible pain. We blamed Fosomax and I stopped taking it, the pain lessened for several months and then returned. We blamed the pain on weeding the flower beds, mowing grass, etc. I used chiropractic care which lessened the pain for a few weeks at a time. After my complaints during several medical visits about the pain, as well as pain and numbness in my thumb and finger, burning in my neck, etc, my PCP sent me for PT which helped for several weeks until neck traction greatly increased the pain. The PCP ordered an MRI with a possible diagnosis of spinal stenosis, a 2nd enhanced MRI indicated a mass which they doubted was metastic (I had breast cancer over 5 years ago with radiation following the surgery; a follow up bone scan diagnosed a lesion in my neck around (I think) C 3 or 4. I saw a neurosurgeon who viewed my x-rays and results and completed a nerve study. He is one of the best in his area, but not very talkative, his office called with an appointment with a pain management doctor. The treatment has helped me immensely. I wore a patch that took down the inflammation until I developed a major rash after 3 !/2 weeks, It helped wonderfully...the pain in my finger and thumb was gone in 3 days.  I take a pain med regularly, a med to improve the nerve damage, use a TENS unit and am doing Aqua Therapy for a month. The pain doc. tells me that I have a degenerative condition but it is unknown how quickly it will progress. He tells me that we are just touching the tip of treatment and if it worsens there is much more he can do. A follow up with the neurosurgeon was my last with him since the pain therapy is working and there is no need for surgery. I am an active 61 year old woman. I have allergies which have been very severe, some requiring hospitalization, and asthma, both which are under control at this time. I have had kidney stones and gall stones with surgery. Spinal lesions are new to me  What is it? What caused it? What is the prognosis as the degeneration continues?  I continue to see my chiropractor about every 4-8 weeks. His care relieves the trauma feeling in my shoulders and neck and continues to relieve the compressed disc in my lower back that X-rays for the kidney stone showed was ready to rupture. I schedule myself, he is not a type to insist on seeing you. He says, "Come back when you need care". Should I be using heat on my back? Is there anything that I do that would worsen this? Will I need surgery in the future? I am improving and can do more and more of the reaching and moving than I could do in the past year. Quite frankly, I find all of this care taking so much time and travel, but I want to get better. Any comments, you give will be greatly appreciated, since the two doctors are not talkers or educators, even though they are listed as some of the tops in their field, in the large city where I travel to see them.

[BhumikaMD]

Hi,

What does your MRI report say?

You would have to talk to your specialist about this as they are the best to advise and explain the disease process in your specific case ; as they know the entire case history, have examined you and have also gone through the reports. Ask them to clear out your doubts and they would probably help you out.

You could also read this article about degenerative disease and let us know if you have any further queries -

http://www.emedicine.com/pmr/TOPIC67.HTM

Let us know about how you are doing and if you have any other doubts.

Post us about what your doctor tells you.

Regards.