About 7 years ago, the wife sat down in my computer chair without realising the back wasn’t locked out of recline and she suffered an unexpected short, sharp, rapid, recline. She could walk, albeit painfully, but she knew she’d done something bad, so we went to the GP, expecting a hospital referral. We got one and the hospital sent her for an x-ray.
This showed that she had arthritis on the base of her spine and in her hips. She was 56/57 at the time so that was hardly breaking news. They sent her off for some physio which eased, but didn’t resolve the hurt, and referred her to a local gym programme – “Fit for Life” – which she attended.
She carried this on for about 5 years and heard about a “Pain clinic” which she thought might help, as the arthritis couldn’t be cured, but it might have been managed better. She eventually got a referral, but needed an MRI before any decision was made. You can see where this is going, I’m sure.
The MRI came back and she was called in urgently. It turns out that when she fell back in my chair, a disc had come out, L5 I think, and was laying vertically instead of horizontally, against the sciatic nerve, apparently called a sequestrated disc. Whereas a fairly simple operation, or even manipulation, 7 years previously, would have re-inserted the disc between the vertebrae, it had now withered and nothing could be done short of a major operation. She is reluctant to undergo this until it has become a last resort.
The gym programme, along with swimming/water aerobics, plus sessions of mild yoga and pilates, as well as losing 4 stone, has made mobility easier. A by-product of that is the surgeon that was looking at the imminent probability of hip replacements has praised her efforts and said her regime has put off the necessity for immediate ops, and to come back to see him when she can’t cope any longer.
All because they couldn’t be bothered to do an MRI, and we didn’t know that problems that wouldn’t show up on x-ray, would on an MRI. I hear on so many occasions from different folk, including iirc on here, that an MRI showed what an x-ray had missed. We all should take this on board and insist on MRI’s, they do seem to be a more complete tool in the consultant’s box.
