[Ben]

Thanks for your response and sorry for the delay. I was waiting for a complete brain/spine MRI and finally have the results. Turns out I have disc protrusions between T5 and T9, the biggest at T8-9 which is causing "mild" compression to the cord. T6-7 and T7-8 there is mild impinging on the cord by discs. Also have mild cord impingement at C5-C6, and the foraminal stenosis at C4-C7 mentioned before. What a mess. (Lumbar is fine, go figure).

So the worst issue looks to be the compression at T8-T9 which might be causing my transient numbness in legs/toes and cold/burning around the chest. The neuro still does not want to operate. He says that thoracic surgery is extremely complex/risky and since I don't have any problems with reflexes, walking, or bowel/bladder/sexual function, that it should be managed conservatively for now. He also says it's not guaranteed that the numbness is caused by that compression. I also don't have much loss of sensation (by "numbness" I mean a cold sensation, not a loss of sensation).

I'm not in a lot of pain; maybe a 2-3. Not taking any painkillers. Arm/hand pain has improved. The leg numbness and chest burning is freaking me out though - I'm not in a good place emotionally. I've read that symptomatic thoracic disc issues are extremely rare, 1 in a million per year. That means if I do need surgery, the surgeon won't have seen many of these, which increases the risk even more. I just don't understand how I went from no back problems whatsoever to all this happening at once. Not sure what to do next...