Back Pain Unknown

[Matt19723]

I have had surgery on my upper spine when I was six to correct a birth defect that was causing the fluid that flows around my brain and spine to enter my spine thru a hole which caused swelling of the spine to the point that I loss motion of my left causing foot drop.  I recovered from the surgery 100% but they had to put in a shunt to driect the fluid so this would not happen again.  I'm 34 now and I have had bad back pain for the last 2 years.  The family doctor did the MRI's of my full spine in 2006 and stated that he did not see anything wrong.  After ending up in the emergency room twice I went back and he sent me to a Neurologist.  There they stated that according to my 2006 MRI's that I was showing signs of Spinal Stenosis.  They started to treat me with Neurontin and it is not helping.  Is this common to have this at a young age?  Can anything else be done?

[Matt19723]

I have had a copy of my medical records from when I was 6 sent to me for starters.  I just don't want to end up with 2 years of being passed around again to come up with (We don't know what is wrong).  I tried seeing  a chiropractor after talking with the neouroligist and that did not help any.   Actually it made things worse because he could not adjust my neck at all, so I starting having headaches and then I stopped going.  The headaches went away after a few days.  I will go back to Iowa City to get another consult as soon as possible.  I know that I will have another full MRI of my back and they can see the comparsions from the MRI done in 2006.  Thank you for your time.

[Zak_Han]

Stenosis is a diagnosis which requires meticulous history-taking and examination technique ,it's not common to have this at your age,but it's hard to know what is real cause of your back pain ,so I would strongly recommend that you see a local neurosurgeon quickly for a second opinion.It is a common misconception that back pain always stems from the pressure of a slipped disc,stenosis or a trapped nerve.  This is misleading, the main cause of pain is inflammation stimulating nerves, causing the pain signal.
Good luck!