We went to the pain clinic yesterday in Seattle ...the doctor confirmed that Dennis has basically a broken back. He has stress fractures and his spine - at the L5 - has slipped forward over his pelvic bone. Doc says he has bone on bone at this point.
The guy was great and for the first time - we feel like we have answers. I point blank asked him if this is what could have caused the paralysis he had from November 2011 to Feb of this year, where he couldn't walk at all. He danced around it like a bit of a politician but it seems like the answer was yes.
He said this sort of thing starts when you are a teenager (he said about 13 or later) ... he sees it in a lot people who are involved with sports. Dennis ran cross country in highschool, plus he joined the Army right after and did all the training, plus he jumped out of planes and such. But he said there was really nothing he could do that could have prevented it.
He wants Dennis to try to lose some weight, strengthen his back and bottom (because those muscles are the biggest stabilizer of the spine) - discontinue some meds that don't help that he's on, start an ibuprofen regiment.... and he is going to give him 4 to 6 months to make these changes.
At this 4 to 6 month point - if there isn't some major improvement (which frankly he didn't think there would be) ... than the next step is surgery.
Now the ER doctor he saw (which Dennis said was rude) ... said "I don't know who would do surgery on you" ... and implied he wouldn't need it.
But Doc F said that most people who get the surgery - who have a wide variety of issues - most likely don't have his. Most people don't really benifit from surgery on their back, it doesn't make the problem go away - it might make it better for a short time, or make it worse all together ... but in Dennis' case ... an hour and a half of surgery and he should feel exponentially better.
He said with most people it's a life style issue. Lose weight, do some strength stuff, but they sit on the couch popping pain pills and expect it to go away. When it doesn't they want surgery when all they really need to do is get up, push through some of the pain, and strengthen muscles to help support the back.
He said, in Dennis' case, it's a mechanical problem. He doesn't expect this stuff to work real well, but it may. And if we can avoid surgery - yay - but this is why he is only giving him 4 to 6 months. Because it is very very obviously a mechanical problem. He has bone rubbing on bone, his nerves are all aggravated because they aren't positioned right and they have more pressure on them, causing Sciatica ... it's causing pins and needles, numbness, etc down to his big toe.
He said that sometimes the do the surgery and roughen the bone to make it basically fuse together itself. But in Dennis' case he thinks that he would benefit from the hardware route (screws) because of the fracture and the way his spine has responded.
So why wasn't this seen before when he complained of the numbness in his legs, the back pains, ect when they checked him for everything under the sun from Lymes to MS ... why didn't the MRI's or what not pick up on this.
Well - if you think about it, those tests are done laying down on your back. So if your spine is straight - it looks like nothing is wrong. It wasn't until the x-ray was done standing up and sideways that they saw the break.
You can see how his spine has shifted forward, it's suppose to be in a nice line with the pelvic bone. ...
Doc F took one look at that yesterday and said "You have a fracture"
So .... that's that for now.
Course this means that we're not going to have money for Christmas. ::: sigh :::
But there is an end in sight. Plus, it will always be fun taking him through medal detectors.
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