all about spondylolysis

We found out last week that Grumpy has a defect in the pars interarticularis of his lumbar vertabrae. No, it wasn't me (I'm not that heavy) Basically, there is a fracture in the bony ring that surrounds and protects his spinal cord.


First stop was A&E after he complained about lower back pain. After waiting forever, the GP says 'looks like no fracture' . So I ask what is causing him the pain ? She say can't say for sure, gotta come back and do MRI. To do an MRI is $2000 a shot. Friggin ex. I just HAATE it when you don't get any clear answers. We are sitting around and waiting for 2 hours and we still don't know anything for sure. Not only that, but we have to come back, wait around and do more Xrays. wtf. Why can't they do everything one shot ? gayness.


Rather than waste more time going through a whole lot of useless procedures, we went to see a specialist. Was feeling very scared (is there surgery involved, will it lead to paralysis blahblah) but after chatting with Dr Razmi, turns out that this condition has an incidence rate of 30%. That is 3 out of 10 people in the general population ! Sometimes, people will have it without even knowing (where the products of inflammation are not pressing on any nerves) . It was so educational learning the anatomy, seeing what to look out for on the xray films and discussing options for pain management. Usually these things will heal by themselves, we shall see when we go for a follow-up in 2 weeks time.