It was in May of 2023 that I finally managed to convince a doctor to do an MRI on multiple parts of my body. My brain, my neck, and the rest of my spine. Along with a ton of blood work to figure out what else was making me feel absolutely horrible and unable to handle much of anything. We found a list of things. Severe anemia, severe B12 deficiency, endometriosis, adenomyosis, a left frontal lobe juxtacortical lesion, a small periventricular lesion. Moderate disc protrusions at T2-3, T6-7, L5-S1, and left C5-6 foraminal narrowing, along with some degenerative anterolisthesis of C4 on C5.
No wonder I’d been struggling so much and having so many problems. We discovered, finally, that the reason I had horrible muscle spasms around my rib cage was because of the disc protrusion at T6-7. The reason my neck and shoulders are in so much pain and I have trouble some days holding up my head due to spasms, pain, and weakness is the C4, C5, and C5-6 issues, made more annoyed by the T2-3. The neck issues also explained why I am having problems with my arms and hands, the nerves running down them are easily annoyed when things are going wrong in your spine and neck. Go figure. Finally we had some ideas of it all, then we just had to figure out treatment other than “just do PT!”
At that point I’d already been in PT for my neck, shoulders, and upper back pain for almost a year. With basically no big difference, but it kept some of the edge off on the muscle pain. Barely, strength training was and continues to be slow as heck. Fibromyalgia compounds the issue too, so doing just the PT route wasn’t cutting it. With all of these problems in my neck and spine, it makes sense that I have thoracic outlet syndrome, which causes pain, weakness, tingling, numbness, and swelling in the neck, shoulders, arms, and hands. Things I’ve had problems with for a fair few years now but have just been brushed off by doctors.
I’ve finally gotten a provider at a local pain management clinic, and they started doing Epidural Spinal Injections for the pain. Particularly in the T2-3 area, and the T6-7. They can do them up to 4 times a year with my insurance, so every 3 months if we needed to. I’ll be honest when I say that I am lucky that they tend to last about four to four and a half months before they start to wear off enough for me to go “oh no! I need it again ASAP!” Sometimes they can get that done within a week or so, this last time took a month. That month was a HORRIBLE wait. Having the spasms return hadn’t been pleasant in the slightest. Sadly, the only way I know it’s close to time to get a shot again is when the symptoms come back, and once they do they tend to come back very quickly and without any way to stop them while waiting for the next injection.
It’s a well enough known fact though, that needles and I aren’t good friends. So the idea of laying on a table/bed while they take a lot of x-rays and position a needle into my back just enough for the steroids to work causes a lot of anxiety. I’ve had to resort to taking anxiety medicine (Xanax I think?) and needing someone to drive me for the appointments. Still, despite the nerves and how long it takes in certain areas (oddly enough, the T6-7 is harder to position than the T2-3 for my back!) I am so happy I finally have some measure of relief from the worst of the symptoms. My muscles are still tense and in a lot of pain, but the spasms stay away for those few months and it’s bliss.
Sadly, I also have some loss of disc hydration at T7-8 and T8-9, which is now starting to cause spasms just below that was happening for the T6-7. I’m attempting to wait patiently to get the next MRI we need to see if those issues have gotten worse. The pain clinic understandably doesn’t want to do injections into a part that we only have MRI’s from 1 1/2 years ago on, that’s not going to give any of us what we need to know. Sadly, it’s been almost 2 months at this point because they forgot to send in the MRI order. I think that they still haven’t, because I asked and they apologized for not sending it in but I still haven’t heard from the hospital for the MRI. Where as someone else I know with spinal issues was calling in for an MRI within days of their doctor sending in the orders.
To say I’m frustrated would be a bit of an understatement at this point. -_-;; I’m positively annoyed at being kept like this while having spasms in my back that make even standing to go into a store for 10-15 minutes become agonizing. Having had a taste of relief from some of the worst of the back symptoms, having them come again like this and being kept waiting for relief is hard. It’s also exhausting, it’s hard to keep doing even just day to day life when things hurt this badly.
Hopefully soon I’ll get that newer MRI, and soon after that I’ll be able to update that I got the sweet relief that comes with getting an injection or some sort of treatment for the spasms I’m having now. The pain I carry around is already exhausting, these problems added to it all have been crushing. I’ll keep up you all update, and will write again soon!
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