Transcript
Do you have back pain? I've had some pretty bad upper back pain for years and recently led to a pretty disturbing discovery. I finally decided to talk to my doctor about it and she had me get some x-rays, which were not helpful. But I insisted there was a problem, so she ordered an MRI. Quick gripe. The medical system loves billing for as many separate things as possible, so they made me come in on separate days each each to get x-rays and MRIs of my back, neck, and my wrist, which was also giving me some problem. So I had to come in and out for multiple days and have multiple follow-up appointments for each one. This is my neck and all its glory. Pro tip, whenever you get medical imaging done, make sure to ask for your own copies of all the images. Because in 2024, medical systems still have problems communicating with each other, getting those images. So having your own copies can sometimes save you months of time or thousands of dollars. But back to me. Turns out I had not one, but two compression fractures in my upper spine. Also several disc bulges in my neck. And a fracture in my wrist, which had recently been hurting me while lifting way. But all this wasn't the worst part. I'd go back to my doctor, and she basically says, if you're experiencing pain, which is why I came in there. So I said yes to the PT, which was not very helpful, and more on that later. But at my age, three fractures in different areas without any sort of significant event to cause them, like a car accident, well, that's not normal. So I insisted on getting a bone density scan, which she agreed to. So a couple weeks later, I get a nice little Dexa scan done to look at the bone density of my left hip and my spine, and it turns out I have worse bone density than the average 80-fighter. This is the normal line, which slowly drops off as you age, and this is my spine. This is my hip. The clinical diagnosis is osteophenia, which is on the road to osteoporosis, but not quite there yet. So yeah, the fractures make sense. But why, though? And what scientific approach am I going to be taking to deal with it? I'll talk about that in the next few videos.
Additional notes
Ironically, after filming this I somehow triggered the worst flare-up that I’ve had to date, making it painful for me to even take a deep breath. I just went in for a cool treatment that I’ll be sharing with you guys soon! (Hopefully it works) Raise your hand if back pain sometimes makes you feel like a 🧟♂️ #science #health #backpain
References
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