Upcoming MRI-Have Questions

[kmac1980]

I have been suffering for years with back pain, in the last 2 years I have gotten much worse, i have had to stop working and have been in bed much more, I am 34 year old worman and I have debilitating weakness and fatigue combined with a host of other symptoms I have seen countless doctors and specialists over the past 2 years including countless tests and bloodwork thus far. I do have celiac disease dx 5 years ago, follow a strict gluten free diet, i also have Degenerative Disc Disease  and (severe) Spinal Stenosis. I have had a Ct scan on my Cervical Area on only. I have seen 2 Neurologists who both couldn't find an answer. I recently seen a spine specialist, to consider surgery and he found my reflexes to be very hyperactive.  I do have numbness and tingling in my arms and hands and sometimes my soles of my feet. I have chronic pain in my back, severe at times, in my hips and pain and heaviness in my arms in legs. The spine specialist has ordered a MRI of my spine and brain to rule out Demilynation, I just received the papers in the mail and its a non contrast MRI of the brain and for the spine they are not doing the thoracic region, only cervical and lumbar. My question is, wouldn't it be standard procedure to due the entire spine if you are ruling out demylination??? I wondering if I should contact my Spine specialist to ask him if he has requested the entire spine as that is what we had discussed and the papers I received from the hospital are saying only cervical and lumbar. I am new to this whole process so bare with me and any advice and information on this whole process is appreciated.  Thank you ......

[bbassel]

My ms back pain due to sspinal lesionss was in my right upper back area between the shoulder and spine. It was debilitating and is better controlled with meds now. The past year it has become painful on my left sside in the same area as my right side. I did develop more spinal lesions during this time. I have rapidly evolving severe relapsing remitting ms. I have been relapse free since Feb when I started tysabrim. Good luck with your mri and it is a long process as stated so make sure you prepare :)

[kwarendorf]

Hi kmac-

Degenerative disk disease and spinal stenosis can cause most of the symptoms you describe. If you have been following a gluten free diet for 5 years then Celiac is not likely involved.

In your shoes I would examine the mechanical issues first. There are ways to address both the disk issue and stenosis. The solutions vary depending on the location of the associated nerve compression. I have had both disk issues and stenosis, so I know that the symptoms can be very similar to MS.

I would certainly clarify the MRI orders with your doctor. I suspect that the lumbar MRI is looking for disk/spine issues rather than demyelination. For all MS intents and purposes the cenrtal nervous system ends at the bottom of the thoracic spine.

Kykle

[Artanis12]

I would add to that that I just had the cervical/thoracic MRI, with and without contrast, and they did not order a lumbar on me either.  I would assume it is, as immisceo said, pretty rare.

My bit of advice to you, since I have pretty bad low back pain but nothing like what it sounds like you have, is to make sure you have as much of whatever pain med you can tolerate, in your system, And if you are claustrophobic, demand a valium or similar,  because what they ordered will be a very long MRI - mine was over 2 hours.  Between each segment - which was about 40-45 minutes, I was allowed to get up and move some, because lying still that long when you are in pain can be unpleasant.

You will need a driver is you are truly doped up though. You will be pretty ragged afterwards.  I'm truly not trying to scare you, you WILL get through it just fine,  but as I said, be prepared for a long go, and if you know you will be in pain, plan accordingly.

[immisceo]

If what was what was discussed, then I definitely would be calling the specialist to clarify. However, full spine would actually be quite a rare order to query demyelination alone. Most of us will have brain only or brain + cervical spine. Some of us do get thoracic as well, but this isn't what I would call common. As for lumbar and sacral, I've not encountered those parts of the spine being imaged in relation to demyelination. (I'm just a patient, however)

More important is that the MRI is conducted to 'MS protocol'. This means the 'slices' (thickness of images) are finer, allowing for a more accurate indication of possible scarring. These scars/lesions can be quite small, so this is important.