G’day Dopers.
I am not looking for medical advice. I am under the care of a doctor yadda yadda.
Just wondering if anyone has had experience with crush fractures in their spine.
a bit of background info:
I’m 35. Whilst I’m a vegetarian I do consume quite a bit of dairy food. I have never ever broken a bone. The pain started while I was sitting at my computer.
It is all a bit WTF for both me and my doctor so Im in the process of having lots of tests. I will be tested for osteoporosis on Friday.
So folks have you ever had a crush fracture - please share your experience. Also anyone have experience of norspan patches?
MRW
Did the doctor say he suspected a “crush fracture”? I’ve never heard that term and a very brief web search didn’t find it. I assume that a “crush” fracture results from some kind of impact on the spine. I fell hard on my tail bone many years ago, and soon after experienced severe pain in my lower back. After basic x-rays were inconclusive and conservative measures (physical therapy, meds) didn’t help, doctor put me in the hospital. CAT scan and bone scan also were inconclusive, but the last test – a myelogram – is what showed the herniated disk in my lumbar spine. Try to recall if you’ve had an accident of any kind that could have affected your spine. Bottom line: it’ll take you doctor and x-rays to pin it down.
Yep Xrays pinned it down. I think she also used the term compression fractures. The way she explained it was something like when little old ladies sat down and thier bones - weakened by osteoporosis - crumbled.
I’m now interest to find out if i’m shorter than I was.
I just had a look with google myself using the exact wording on my referal form
http://tinyurl.com/5rwsly
http://tinyurl.com/6l9ua6
‘Compression fracture’ is probably the more commonly-used term.
As noted here , my 11-year-old had such a fracture last February, as a result of a fall. Though I gather these sort of fractures are more commonly a sign of some sort of osteoporosis or other disease process, in her case it was simply the fall hitting something just right (or, just wrong, I guess!).
My guess is that your docs will want to try to find out what led to this happening - again, osteo or other disease - and treat that to prevent it from happening again.
In my daughter’s case, she bounced back very, very quickly. As in, 3 days later in nearly no pain at all. Clearly her fracture was fairly minor.
Forgot to mention: Once the problem was diagnosed, they didn’t do anything. No need to immobilize, no other treatment, they basically said slightly reduced activities for a bit. I know there are more invasive treatments (e.g. filling in the pores in the bones with some sort of cement), which obviously also carry some risk; I don’t know what the deciding criteria are for doing additional treament.
I see a lot of chiro records which substitute “crush fracture” for “compression fracture”.