Greetings from Munich!
Calla, welcome to the club. I had similar experience. I had substantial (progressing to disabling) low back pain for 2.5 years, while the surgeons were giving me the "I could pull 100 45 year old men off the street - WITH NO SYMPTOM - and 1/2 of them would have MRI's worst than mine!"
In retrospect, these spine surgeons who suffer from a lack of knowledge about discogenic pain - they actually helped me. Had they done discography and proved discogenic pain in 1998 or 1999, I might have a 2-level lumbar fusion. (And I believe that I would have been a success with a fusion, but knowing what I know now, I am certainly glad that I had ADR instead.)
This is just an idea... I'm not suggesting this and sometimes these types of letters have unexpected ramifications - sometimes they work magic too.
Dear Doc, ....
Calla... as I typed, I realized that I have more questions for you that might make a difference in ways that you may approach this. Are you back pain or leg pain. Your MRI posted earlier mentions moderate facet hypertrophy... have they been evaluated with diagnostic injections, bone scan or other methods? Are you suffering from facet pain or discogenic LBP.
Is your doctor saying that you do not have pain or is he simply stating that the MRI does not show a reason for surgery. He may be right about that, but the suggestion that all problems that may be addressed always show up on MRI is simply... simply... too simple. It's not that easy. He doesn't do surgery on MRI's, he does surgery on people's pain. Open up to the idea that he may be helping you because doing surgery without a clear diagnosis is foolhardy. However, stopping the diagnostic process because the MRI looks unremarkable is also ridiculous.
Mark
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