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Good afternoon everyone,
Where do I start. The beginning I suppose. I was diagnosed with Scoliosis at 6months. “S” curve, I have an extra rib with an extra half a vertebrae that throws me off. Wore a brace until I was 13. Had surgery when I was 13, I am now 36. I just recently found an x-ray from after my surgery. I was corrected to 36 degrees upper curve and 56 degrees lower curve. The fusion I have goes all the way down to L4. Everything was going along fine ( I say that but I have always had back pain on and off) until about 5 months ago When I started getting numbness and tingling in my left leg (outside of leg below my knee down to my baby toe and its neighbor), I had no pain in my back (outside of the normal aches). Went to my GP and they said wait maybe you have a pinched nerve in your knee it will go away. Of course it didn’t she had me set up with a Neurosurgeon who ordered MRI of back and head, MRA or head all came back normal, except for the MRI because I had to many “treasures” in there….lol they couldn’t get good pictures of my back. I also had an EMG done and that came back abnormal, showing something wrong between L5 and S1. I just started my second week of physical therapy. My therapist had me start by seeing what was causing the numbness. Started with flexion exercises and that just made it worse. The next time I saw her she decided to try extension. Which I do have a little bit of, but the exercises caused a great deal of pain. To the point where I almost left work on Friday because of the discomfort. I continued to do the exercises on Saturday but on Sunday I said forget it. She now has me started on some core strengthening exercises and some hip strengthening exercises. My left hip is significantly weaker than the right.
I have lots of questions
Has anyone else had this happen to them? what did you do?
The doctor said that we could have done a myelogram but she wanted to try PT first….my question is why am I doing physical therapy if we are not sure what is wrong….how is the PT supposed to know what to treat without doing more harm?
I am starting to think that I should see my original surgeon?
I really don’t know where to go from here. Last year I started running and was doing well. I ran my first 5k and would really like to go back to running but right now everyone is telling me to not do any excercises.
Any help would be appreciated.
Melissa
Where do I start. The beginning I suppose. I was diagnosed with Scoliosis at 6months. “S” curve, I have an extra rib with an extra half a vertebrae that throws me off. Wore a brace until I was 13. Had surgery when I was 13, I am now 36. I just recently found an x-ray from after my surgery. I was corrected to 36 degrees upper curve and 56 degrees lower curve. The fusion I have goes all the way down to L4. Everything was going along fine ( I say that but I have always had back pain on and off) until about 5 months ago When I started getting numbness and tingling in my left leg (outside of leg below my knee down to my baby toe and its neighbor), I had no pain in my back (outside of the normal aches). Went to my GP and they said wait maybe you have a pinched nerve in your knee it will go away. Of course it didn’t she had me set up with a Neurosurgeon who ordered MRI of back and head, MRA or head all came back normal, except for the MRI because I had to many “treasures” in there….lol they couldn’t get good pictures of my back. I also had an EMG done and that came back abnormal, showing something wrong between L5 and S1. I just started my second week of physical therapy. My therapist had me start by seeing what was causing the numbness. Started with flexion exercises and that just made it worse. The next time I saw her she decided to try extension. Which I do have a little bit of, but the exercises caused a great deal of pain. To the point where I almost left work on Friday because of the discomfort. I continued to do the exercises on Saturday but on Sunday I said forget it. She now has me started on some core strengthening exercises and some hip strengthening exercises. My left hip is significantly weaker than the right.
I have lots of questions
Has anyone else had this happen to them? what did you do?
The doctor said that we could have done a myelogram but she wanted to try PT first….my question is why am I doing physical therapy if we are not sure what is wrong….how is the PT supposed to know what to treat without doing more harm?
I am starting to think that I should see my original surgeon?
I really don’t know where to go from here. Last year I started running and was doing well. I ran my first 5k and would really like to go back to running but right now everyone is telling me to not do any excercises.
Any help would be appreciated.
Melissa
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