Annular Tear. Any experience?

Re: Annular Tear. Any experience?

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  mattnrachel member

  January 2012

  I do!  This is going to get long, but the moral of the story is: Get a second opinion and if something doesn't sound right, it probably isn't.  I'm also sharing this because I thought my career was pretty much over and my life would never be the same because of the stories I had heard about disc tears.  Your experience may be completely different from mine, but for me, it isn't the end of the world at all.

  My background:  I've been a detective for a large midwestern police agency for about 2.5 years.  I was a street cop for 4.5 years, so plenty of car accidents, fights, and general whatnot that might have caused my disc to tear.  Although, I've learned that really almost any wrong move can cause them.

  Since I was about 18, I would get this pain in my right lower back/top of my butt.  I would take life easy for a few days, and it would go away.  I saw a couple of doctors early on for it.  The first one told me that because I have an extra lumbar disc, I would always have back pain and all he could do was write me a prescription for pain meds.  I knew that wasn't right, said no thanks, and went on with life.  He is currently doing 30 years in federal prison for prescription drug law violations and money laundering.  A couple of years later, I went to another doc who told me as long as I was overweight, I would always have this back pain.  Over the next two years, I lost 50 lbs, and he was somewhat correct in that I had the pain less.  That was college.

  After Doc #2, I had pretty much just resigned myself to put up with this pain whenever it showed up, which was usually 3-4 times a year for a few days at a time.

  February of 2011, the pain came and stuck around.  My friend recommended his chiropractor, who does more muscle work and stretching than popping and cracking.  The chiro checked everything out and said he thought I have sacroiliac joint dysfunction.  If you were to google the symptoms of SI joint dysfunction, that's exactly what my pain feels like.  His treatment was to basically do deep tissue work on my glutes, stretch and occasionally adjust my SI joint.  After several treatments, there was no real improvement, so he sent me for x-rays.  X-ray showed that I have slight scoliosis with curvature right around my bra line.  Then he sent me for an MRI, which showed a tear in the L4-L5 disc (with mass effect on the nerve) and a bulging L5-S1.  He did some things to unload the discs and nothing was affecting the pain.

  There are a lot of guys I work with who have had disc tears.  I talked to 4-5 people, and it just didn't seem like I had the symptoms they had.  I was talking to a good friend of mine about this, who is a gymnastics coach.  He doesn't have any medical degrees, but has seen plenty of injuries throughout the years, and I completely respect his opinion.  He said it didn't sound to him like I was having pain from the tear either.  Basically everyone could tie their injury to one event because it caused so much severe pain, and they couldn't move for weeks afterward.  I never had that.  So I went back to the chiro and talked to him about this.  He thought I should see a neurologist.

  In april of 2011, I went to said neurologist, who looked at my mri, did a very quick exam and said I needed epidurals.  When I questioned why he didn't think it was SI joint dysfunction, he got snarky with me about how as a physician and based on the mri, his opinion was that the discs were the problem.  No real explanation.  I told Super Doc to shove it and left.  (I had also been kept waiting in the lobby for an hour and was in unbelievable pain).

  So I kept going to my chiro in hopes that something would change.  In May, my brother attempted suicide.  Let's just say it was not a cry for help.  I bring this up because the stress of that made the pain absolutely unbearable.  I could hardly walk, couldn't stand, couldn't sit.  The most comfortable position was lying down.  I went to my regular doctor because I was up for my yearly exam and talked to her about this back pain.  She recommended I go to their pain management doctor.

  I saw him at the end of June last year.  He examined me very thoroughly, explained the difference in detail between SI joint dysfunction and pain from discs.  Basically, if I were having disc pain, I would feel the pain in my lower right outer leg because that's where the nerve from my L4-L5 ends up.  I don't have pain there, but there are times when I do feel something there.  I can only describe it as static with some tightness, but it doesn't hurt.  So he thought I was having pain from my SI joint as well and scheduled me for a cortisone injection.  The injection hurt for about 10 seconds while he was actually injecting.  Afterward, I had less pain for about a week, and on day 7, I had absolutely no pain.  The very next day, it was back though, and stronger than it had been that previous week.  I ended up getting another injection in the SI joint that didn't help, and then we moved to epidurals.  I got 2 that didn't do anything at all for my pain.  And, he was all geared up to do more in my L5-S1!  I have to say, I admired the guy's tenacity, but the injections were hard on me, messed up my cycles, and I gained a good 10 lbs in just a few months, so I was ready to be done with them.  I had also started physical therapy, and some of the exercises did seem to help.

  I was still going to my chiropractor through all of this, mostly because I like the guy and he was willing to stick with trying to fix my problem.  In August, he had a colleague visiting in his office and asked her to have a look at me.  According to him, she is genius material, and I have to say, I was a big fan too.  She listened to my story, never laid a hand on me, and said, "It sounds like Maigne's Syndrome."  Then she explained that Maigne's Syndrome (aka Thoracolumbar Junction Syndrome) is basically tightness in the erector muscles of the spine that causes muscles that attach at the hip to become tight.  Those muscles that attach at the hip are pulling on the nerves that come from my lumbar spine, and so it can feel and look like nerve pain from disc tears/bulges and SI joint dysfunction.  The treatment is massage of the spinal erectors, lower back, and adjustment of the thoracolumbar junction (which is also where my curvature is).

  My chiro had not heard of this syndrome, and neither had the pain management doc.  The treatment (done by my chiro) took me from about a 6 to a 1 on the pain scale in about 30 minutes, when nothing else had done near that for me.  I still have pain sometimes, especially after sitting at a desk 6 days in a row.  Exercises that help are anything that works those spinal muscles, so yoga and twisting are in for me.  I had pretty much stopped exercising because I didn't want to make it worse, but I'm back to doing crossfit, and all the lifting that goes with it.  I use a foam roller a couple of times a day to help stretch my back and found that tylenol works wonders for the pain.  So far, being pregnant has helped, and nobody can really explain that one.

  I don't know if that helps you at all, but I say keep asking questions until you get some answers.

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  CareZ

  January 2012

  Sorry you're having to deal with this. I do not have any experience with this sort of injury but agree that you need to pursue it with another doctor and do very in-depth research on the problem to find what has worked best for those suffering from the same condition. I chased down a mysterious hip ailment for over a year with my doc who couldn't figure it out and he eventually gave me the "getting older" speech (I was 36!). I then went to a Sports Med doc and first visit they diagnosed a labral tear, and confirmed it with a contrast MRI. FINALLY good to have an answer. I then did a ton of research to find out what worked best for most patients and what protocol the best doctors in the field used. Then I pursued a few different surgeons, I found them mostly to be anxious to cut on me and had outdated recovery methods - one of them even had the nerve to tell me that if the first surgery didn't work that they could always "go back in." Ummmm no thanks! Fortunately I found one that did a fellowship under one of the best docs in the field, he answered ALL of my questions, was patient with me, and willing to work with me on other ways to alleviate the pain instead of going directly to surgery. It took a lot of time and dr visits but it has led me to a doc that is willing to partner with me and whom I trust to do my surgery if that time comes - TOTALLY worth it. Good luck!!!!

  

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