Radiculopathy Part 2
March 18, 2011 by Dr. Marc Darrow, M.D.
Filed under Back Pain
Caller: I have been suffering with lower back pain due to playing football for such a long time. The pain runs from my lower back down into the right side of my leg. Chiropractors worked on me for years but they say that basically there is nothing they can do for me with the discs as compressed as they are. I played in the NFL for 18 months.
Dr. Darrow: There are two things that run through my mind immediately when someone has leg pain, either it is a radiculopathy which means that there is some bone that is overgrown in the vertebrae that closes off the holes where the nerves come out or there is a piece of the disc that cushions the vertebrae that has broken loose or has become a herniated disc. If that is the case, then Prolotherapy sometimes can help because it stabilizes the vertebrae so there is not much shifting of the bones so it is not irritating the nerve.
We are differentiating between a referral pattern from a ligament in the low back or a radiculopathy which is an inflammation or a pinching around the nerve that comes out of the spinal cord that comes out of the vertebrae and goes down the leg. And unless we are able to put our thumbs in your back and check you out, we would not know for sure what is going on but we will be careful NOT to use an MRI to make our diagnosis for us because more than half the people with no back pain at all, if they get put in an MRI machine, half of them would have disc problems ON FILM, but no back pain.
Most of the surgeries that are done, in my opinion, is to cure the MRI than to cure the person. Our clinic is filled with these people who had the surgeries that have failed.
There is hope, even when people do have these flares of leg pain like you do, most of them go away on their own.
Caller: That is exactly right, I have been dealing with this for 20 years. It comes and goes.
Dr. Darrow: Back exercises can be a good idea. MedX is a big frame machine built by Arthur Jones who built Nautalis Equipment. This machine can strengthen up the muscles in the low back, which can be a good idea with someone with this type of problem. There is a lot of hope that you can deal with this without surgery. But if you have progressive neurological deficits like you can’t go to the bathroom, you can’t lift your leg, your leg is shrinking in size, things like that you need a surgical consult.
