[steve55]

Well, soon after I praised Lyrica so much, it suddenly stopped working. One thing Ive learned with spine issues is to not get too overconfident for very long. For example, as soon as I emailed Dr B and Dr Sullivan how well I was doing last summer, I soon crashed again. It's like some kind of jinx for me. Anyways, Ive read that the body isnt supposed to develop a tolerance to these antivonvuslants type drugs : ( Gosh. I cant imagine what happened then. My pain is so bad before and after the lyrica, its hard to believe it was a just a coincidental pain free stretch. I may get back on lyrica again to see if I get the same result as Ive been off of it for several weeks now since it stopped working. But my doc wants me on Cymbolta next. I guess the Lyrica experiment will have to wait.

UPDATE- so, my CT and MRI cervical and Thoracic show nothing wrong other than thinning thoracic discs. I had a long talk with the pain mgt doc (I believe he is one of the best here in Dallas, TBI uses him and he is in many magazine "Top docs" lists in peer to peer reviews. He is seasoned and I trust him). The pain mgt doc agrees with the Neuro. My films are clean. I told him that since my pain is at T4, what if I have "Internal Disc disruption"? (A condition where the disc has tears and Ive read often isn't picked up on MRI and CT's). He seems to think the MRI would have picked that up if that was the case. But what I read online since then says otherwise. So I need to ask him about that again. I found studies whose results said the following :

1. On magnetic resonance imaging 21 of the 48 discs appeared normal.
However, on discography, only 10 were judged as normal.
Both studies supported the concept that discographically provoked
concordant pain is seen in symptomatic degenerative discs studied, but
that in asymptomatic individuals, very little pain typically is observed
even in morphologically abnormal discs.

2. Thoracic discography may demonstrate disc pathology not seen on
magnetic resonance imaging. In addition, subtle, yet potentially
painful disruptions in disc morphology can be missed by MRI in its
current state.

I know there is a huge controversy about discograms. My neuro doesnt believe in them but TBI and Dr Bertagnoli seem to. Ive read Mark's extensive reply to Aaron's post about the controversy surrounding discographies. My pain mgt doc as experienced as he is, made a comment he hasn't done a thoracic discography before which surprised me. But he would consider it if we run into dead ends in the diagnostic process. The internet research seems to indicate they are extremely rarely done. But how else will the docs know if you have a "internal disc disruption" or torn discs leaking fluid hence causing all the pain?? MRI's wont necessarily catch them right? DO I have that right?? If this is right, how else can you be sure whether you have tears in the thoracic then? If I do have tears missed by the MRI, then doing a thoracic discotemy would fix me just as the cervical discetomy resolved my pain. What makes that more convincing is that my current symptoms are mostly the same as before my cervical discotemy minus the radicular arm and hand pain.

Anyways, I am scheduled for facet joint injections at C3 and T1 next Tuesday. Based on his diagnostic experience, he feels my pain is "referred". He thinks the T4 pain is originating from one of the adjacent level discs or facets next to my 3 level fusion.

So, I guess I'm in the same boat as Mark. Clean films but still tons of pain. I guess it leaves docs guessing as to the cause. I wish my films showed where the problem was so at least we know what to do.(sigh)

As it is now, I'm not eating much (losing weight), Ive been missing work because I cant get out of bed due to the sheer exhaustion of pain. I usually get up at 10:30AM but the last few days Ive just layed in bed till 2pm, just cant get up due to the physical exhaustion and toll. Yes, the pain meds help, but they arent a cure all and I cant see myself taking vicodin 4-5 times a day. I'm thinking that's just too much for the liver. So once again, Im back to being somewhat terrified as to what the future holds. The thoughts of Social security disability start popping in my head again. (Ughh)