#discogram

Silver Linings are everywhere if you look hard enough.

It’s funny how some misfortunes can lead to silver linings. In my case, the misfortune my co-worker went through of having a sore back and that leading to specialist appointments that then led to a FREE MRI, then led ME to question why hers was free and mine never have been. So much leading. I’m going to let you in on a little secret no one in the medical profession ever tells you. You don’t HAVE…

Today I had what was the final test to try and figure out what’s wrong with my back. After 8 years of suffering and tests, after leaving behind so many of my favorite activities, including art, after losing friends due to the spiraling depression and anger at this chronic pain...we think we’ve found it.

I had a discogram today, which is where they inject your spinal discs with fluid and dye to increase pressure on them.  The dye shows the inner structures of the disc so they can see if there are cracks, fissures, and other degenerated forms.  The increased pressure is supposed to activate the pain so that they can clearly point at the disc itself as a pain generator.  It’s like poking a bear to make it roar at you.

With discograms, there is a bit of controversy surrounding how you do them.  You’re supposed to do a healthy disc as a control, but then there’s also a school of thought that that’s dangerous or inaccurate.  It’s one of those things that is hotly debated in the spinal health community apparently.  

Today, we were only supposed to do two discs, the two that my doctor thought were the likely targets.  Suddenly, he decided, just to be safe and have a test that no one could deny, we’d go ahead and do a third disc as a control.  Turns out that the decision to do that, by a stroke of luck, actually found what may be my main pain generator, whereas the one we suspected may not be a generator at all.  Total luck and intuition on my doctor’s part.  He showed me the X-ray pics, and sure enough, the disc that was supposed to be a control is a wreck. It also reproduced the pain that I’m very used to feeling when it’s at it’s worst.

Oddly enough, I didn’t give a number higher than 5 or 6 on the pain scale because I’m so used to pain.  They were like man, we’ve seen grown men howl out, but you are really stoic with all this.  I have dealt with chronic pain since I was a kid thanks to the Fibro, so it takes a hell of a lot to make me howl.  Usually it has to be mouth related, I can’t handle that stuff.  But with everything else, I have a very high pain tolerance.  Pain and I are the original abusive OTP, hahahakaha.

So, here I am, after all these years of absolute flippin misery, my mental health cascading into darkness from my physical state, I might have an answer.  I will get the actual, clear CT read next week, but even the X-ray was like “Yo your shit’s a hot mess right here”, so that’s amazing.  This is the BEST bad news I could ever ask for.  Fortunately for me, there are a couple of very good treatment options for disc degeneration.  They’re even located here in my state, so I don’t have to go far.  There’s tech that can use stem cells to rebuild the discs, as well as injectable sealants that will mend cracks.  The stem cells are wildly positive though.  There’s a man my doc knows who works with heavy cable and machines, and he had it done and is basically normal now.  HOT DAMN.  TAKE MY MONEY.