Hello all, new member with question

[flygla]

I found my way to this wonderful place by way of Melonie Beattie's book, and I was overwhelmed by Mark's story.
Thank you for the wealth of information on here.

This is my story, in a nutshell.
It started with a bad rear ender, whiplash and damage to my neck requiring an epidural 5 years later at C5/6. I was incredibly fortunate that this relieved the pain in that area.
Two years later I began to feel pain between my shoulder blades. I have been through every kind of therapy and test imaginable it seems, the MRI does show disc degeneration in T5/6/7 with arthritis. The pain is severe, in 7 years of coping with this pain I have ended up on Duragesic to cope and lead a semi normal life. I have fibrommyalgia as well and try to lead a very active life, between working full time, 3 teenagers, and flyfishing on days off in order so I stay in shape as much as possible. I also had a herniated disc in L5 last year with sciatica for a year requiring an epidural, luckily I am almost 100 percent healed from that.

My question is, can anything be done with the thoracic area? I have been met with nothing but "there's nothing we can do" so far.

I thank you very much for any information you can give me in advance.

Deb

[mmglobal]

Deb.... I'm glad you found us, but sorry you need to be here.

Since the rear-ender that kicked off all my spine stuff, the most common symptom I suffer from is my 'inter-scapular' pain... sounds like yours. It feels like I've been hit with a baseball mid-way between the scapula and the spine... just a dull ache... constant bruise that never goes away and is sometimes very limiting.

We don't hear too much about thoracic issues because they are so much less common. Your t-spine, T1-T12 is defined by the vertebral bodies with ribs attached. This extra structure makes this area much less mobile and much more protected. However, when there are problems, getting to the discs is much more problematic. In the past, they had to do a thoracotomy... crack your chest and go in through the front. While the t-spine problems are much less common, they can be very problematic because the structure of the spinal cord in the t-spine more delicate... like in the cervical spine... not more durable like in the lumbar spine.

In the 90's, John Regan pioneered a new technology that made t-spine disc surgery much safer and less traumatic. Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS) allows the surgeon to gain access to the thoracic discs through a few small portals put in the patients side. Instead of a big long incision and cracking the rib cage... rib spreader... moving other organs out of the way... VATS will be done through maybe 4 smaill incisions, maybe an inch or so long. A plastic portal will allow the surgeon to work inside your chest. One will be for a video camera. Another for a light source. A couple more for tools. They will very gently deflate the lung and will perform the surgery while looking at a TV monitor... very cool stuff.

A couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to see Dr. Regan perform a VATS procedure. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

Deb... the symptoms you described do sound more like cervical issues than throracic ones. Do you have a current cervical MRI? We get rear-ended and have symptoms that may be resolved in a few days, weeks, months. But the damage to our c-spine kicks off or accelerates the degenerative process, especially at C5-6-7 (for rear-enders). (All the "I'm not a doctor" disclaimers belong here... )

I hope you can find something that helps. Let me know if you'd like to contact Melanie... she's up in the frozen north too.

All the best,

Mark

[flygla]

Thank you Mark. I will look up what I can find about VATS.......sounds like something rarely done. My hopes are low, it's hard when you are not even 40 to feel like you are 80..... but nevertheless, I won't give up hope.

At least I am still able to flyfish despite it all......if I lost that, I would probably be lost then. I will take your advice and have my neck rechecked as well, who knows, that's where the original damage started.

Thanks again and also for all your links, some of which I have never seen before..... info sharing is good and keeps the hope alive.

Give Melanie a high and tell her I hope she is a whole lot warmer than I am in the frozen white north. Snowing in Vancouver today!!

Cheers
Deb

[Maria]

Hi Deb,
Welcome to the forum~ sorry to hear how you ended up here in terms of accident/injury/symptoms.

I have a friend that is crazy about flyfishing~ I think it would aggravate my neck a bit by the casting (? correct terminology) only because when I toss a ball to my dog I seem to aggravate my neck/shoulder (and sometimes elbow) tho perhaps I'm wrong since I haven't really tried it myself and don't know what muscle groups are used for this sport exactly.

One thing for sure is if you love something and are able to be semi active with it as well as the other areas of your life, that sounds pretty decent!

Glad to hear the ESI's helped the lumbar area so much~ that is really GREAT!! Now just hope the other offending areas will heal up as nicely!

[fortitudine]

Hi Deb,

I can't help you at all, but I just wanted to say welcome from another Canadian, in Calgary(I'd say Canuck but you might think I play hockey in your town). There are very few of us on any spine forums. It's a challenge in Canada finding out what's going on, what docs are doing what, who's the best, etc. because the public health system doesn't really allow for the public to get additional consults or find out who's who in their specialty. I do know that we are not very advanced in the field of ADR. Don't know about t-spine issues. I'll see if I can find out what's happening here.

Mark is a fountain of knowledge, and if anyone knows where the right doc is in the US or Europe, it will be him.