Discussion with the Doctor

My MRI scan report was delivered to my office today. The medical jargon thereof scared me out of my wits. I panicked and called up the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and asked to speak to Dr. Richard Sandor. He called me back after an hour and a half and patiently went over all my doubts.

A few pointers that came through the discussion:

1. The pain is not due to the fracture. Fracture pains do not come back once gone.

2. Pain is possibly due to soft tissue and he clarified that he meant anything other than bone when he said 'soft tissue'. He did not rule out disc damage either.

3. He said that even though the MRI report mentioned disk narrowing and dessication of L2 & L3 and disk bulge at L4 & L5 - the most important thing that he could 'clinically' detect was the compression fracture.

4. 25% compression fractures are medically considered 'minor' as opposed to 50% - moderate and 75% - severe.

5. The compressed bone is going to look that way for the rest of my life. The 'squishing' won't ever go away.

6. This injury of mine may or may not cause chronic back pain later.

7. He did NOT recommend vertebroplasty but said that I could consider it as an option if I wanted to. He said that it is too 'aggressive' a procedure. It did not cross his mind even once when he diagnosed my case. He said that there were studies which said that vertebroplasty did not help. He said that it would not help me to achieve anything faster.

8. He said that I did not do damage to myself by not taking bed rest immediately after the fracture. All orthopaedics these days support an active lifestyle rather than a sedentary one.

9. He said that I could go in for physical therapy after 2-3 months. PT ought to be done when the fracture is stable. He was vague whether my fracture was stable or not. When I asked him if PT would help alleviate my disc pain he said that PT treated the entire back as an unit and how better to make it function rather than target the specific cause of pain.

10. When I asked him about conceiving - he asked me to hold off for sometime. He said that in cases like these there were women whose back pain worsened, some were unchanged and in a rare handful, it actually improved! He said even if the pain worsens terribly during carrying the baby/delivery, it is seldom crippling.

My journal has seen me go from emotional distress to physical pain. These days it resembles a journal to deal with pain. God - please smile on me. I am having a hard time and can't take it anymore.