Schermann's Disease mid back failing kyphosis

I finally remembered why I have mid back kyphosis from a near death car accident age 18.  I shouldn't be alive.  I flipped my car going 60 in vw bug coming home on the Silverado Trail in the upper wine country back to Napa with pouring down rain.  Nobody who saw the accordian of a car, could believe that I was alive.  I crouched behind the steering wheel and literally said to God, "please, I don't want to die!!".  All the windows popped as I flipped end over end (not sideways) down the road after the tires buckled for some reason.  I didn't stop until I hit the left side embankment.  Officers said, had I gone the right side down the small cliff to the vineyards where the barbed wire lay, I would have been dead.  My Dad wouldn't (I suppose couldnt'), talk to me for 2 weeks.  It was life changing at age 18.  My mother, oh bless her soul, took me to work the very next day (not to a doctor).  I never went to a doctor until I guess I figured I could work for one, or a psuedo one, so I could get free xrays on my spine at the Chiropractor.  


After that, I didn't have a lot of fear, ya know.  That's what made me get into college shortly after, flee the nest to Las Vegas for a Culinary or Hotel Admin degree at UNLV.  I suppose it's things like that that shape us, and we make choices as to which direction are we going to go.  


Anyway, I am reminded of my Scheurmann's Disease.  Is this from the accident or are we born with this?  I don't know.  Maybe this is the diagnosis from the doctor that my mother forgot.   But I had a compression fracture that collapsed several discs in College after lifting a large old tv up and down the stairs to watch it...silly me.  That caused in an front forwarding disc rupture where the herniations face forward not backward.  No doctor does surgery for it from what I've been researching.  I've heard of them putting cement type product to stabilize the discs in the past, maybe there are new therapies.  However, every single major Spine surgeon wouldn't touch it in my 3 year quest to get my back fixed after my accidents.  I gave up after that.  So, I wrote to my concierge doctor telling her, I've finally realized what is causing this chest wall pain so bad that I cannot hardly breathe.  And I am not exaggerating.  I have these lumps on my mid to lower sternum.  Maybe these are cysts and not cancer, I suspect as the head of PT told me that my body tended to create cysts everywhere I had an injury.  Neural or Tarlov cysts.  But these were much higher up.  I don't know what kind of imaging will pick these up because xrays are not.  Maybe Ultrasound??  Maybe it's not breast cancer, maybe it's just that my spine is riddled with cysts from my injuries??  I have become much clearer after weaned off the Belbuca.  My pain has pointed me to exactly where it's coming from and I've remembered all my MRI's and appointments and disappointments in diagnoses or fixes over the years.  I need to be able bodies.  I have not left the bed for 7 days now.  I am literally typing on my lap and I lay like this 24 hours.  I cannot live like this y'all.  I just cannot.

Replies

Community LeaderLeo
Leo

You needed a doctor. You still do. Neurosurgeon. If it can be fixed, they love to find a reason to do so. Tarlov cysts are common after trauma. You done did that.

Myelogram with dye?

Just... as much as it sucks ---- and my left leg is either charlie-horsing or numb from a partial pinched spinal nerve, meaning I can't do much but cry ---- get up offa that thing and demand doctors do something. Tarlov cysts may be associated iwth autoimmune responses (studies are iffy but incline that way) and while they're commonest in lower back, that's b/c the most trauma usually occurs at the lower back. You probably injured your thoracic and it just got ignored.

You need a holistic approach. Can you get to Mayo in Minnesota or Cleveland Clinic? They've got newer treatments where the cyst is emptied and the cyst sac is filled with something so the CSF can't refill the cyst. This stabilizes the cyst (no growth) and can help.

HUGS
JPTexas2
JPTexas2

God I love having a BioNerd as a friend!!!! xoxo

OK, so prepping for collapse of ACA......this is so weird you are saying that because, my concierge doc is doing NOTHING with this. I've been screaming since I came back from my trip. All they did was fu'g sedate me and source of the problem. Maybe this is a miracle in disguise me going through this because I sent in a request to be covered by association health plan. It's expensive as hell, but somewhat affordable monthly at $700//month. But the guy goes, oh yeah, this is a nationwide plan. I was like WAAHHHAAAAAATTT????
So, I wrote back and said, hey, is Stanford Medical and Cleveland Clinic in this plan. Immediately, he wrote back with all the details showing yes. The out of pocket max and deductible are $3500, so basically, I need to have $11k / a year to cover it or $1000/month. Which ain't bad from what I'm hearing others talk about. But, for my poor self, not doable right now. The deadline is tomorrow, but he said I can enroll anytime. I need to hurry up and make some money, or go see if my dear old mother is actually dead. God, that's awful isn't it?

OK, listen, I read about that cyst draining and about 5 years ago, found a doc in Dallas that did that. But I also in PubMed that the fluid can come back? BUT, if it's not laying on this nerve like right now level 8-9 pain where I can hardly breathe, f' I need it NOW!!!

What to do, when you need urgent medical care and are poor. I'm bawling my eyes out every night, honestly. I'm so afraid LEO. I'm F'G TERRIFIED, I'll only admit to you. It's the first time I've been this scared about my flat on my back 24/7 typing on a laptop. Scared sh(tless.
JPTexas2
JPTexas2

* flat on my back 24/7 typing on a laptop condition.