my MRI results, help yahoo!

t3-t4: radial bulge w/ scant affect on spinal canal
t6-t7:mild desiccation/mild radial bulge w/ scant affect on spinal canal
t7-t8: slight encroachment in the anterior surface of the thecal sac by bulging disc

L3-L4: moderately broad based disc protrusion causing mild to moderate encroachment on the anterior surface of the thecal sac

im 23, and i had an slip/fall injury on 9/13/06
im in horrible pain 16 hours a day…none of the 5 dr’s ive seen will give me meds to control the pain. it also doesnt help that im a full time student and work 30 hrs a week, i feel like im going to break soon…i cant sleep, i have trouble sitting/standing for anything over 30 min. my whole personality has changed, i get stressed out too easily now
ive been doing physical therapy with stretches/core strenghtening exersices and the neurosurgeon im seeing did an epidural steroid injection in my lumbar spine 2 weeks ago, which has done nothing for me thus far

You do have a significant problem according to your MRI which could be potentially irreversible without surgery, but I would not make that judgement without seeing you in the clinic. First, while core strengthening is a good thing, there is no benefit it gives to helping to reduce a bulging or herniated disc.

I am not sure what types of stretches you are doing, but I do know that there is a potential to increase the disc bulging with streches such as pelvic tilts and knees to chest, etc. If what you are doing is helping you…fine, stay with it. Yet, it sounds like you are not getting any relief. With this type of problem, I expect my patients to have at least some releif within the first seven visits.

If you are not having relief with your current course of PT, I highly recommend you see someone who has gone through continuing education and complete study in MDT (aka "the McKenzie method"). I am not trying to disagree with your therapist, but it sounds like you’ve had no benefit so far. The benefit with this appraoch is that if it ISN"T going to help you, we’ll know within 7 visits. Therefore, very little time is lost…I may take longer than 7 visits, but at least we’d know by then if we are on the right track.

Spinal decompression is also an option (as mentioned above), but what I don’t like about it is that you can’t "take it with you" whereas, the MDT approach tries to show you what to do on your own to help yourself. Also, the stats on spinal decompression are misleading if you don’t read the full studies. Yes, it’s true that it has a success rate of close to 90%, however, that is only in people who have a problem at 1 level (and not 4 like you)…it starts to rapidly decline with multiple level problems and in the presense of disc degeneration and approaches that of other traditional therapies.

You may need to seek out a therapist that has more specialized training.