Them Bones Part 2

Just so we're all on the same page ...

I first went to the doctor's office over two weeks ago because of some shoulder, neck and arm pain I was experiencing. My Primary Care Physician prescribed me to get an MRI of my shoulder and also referred me to see a Sports Medicine Therapist/Doctor.

The Sports Med. Doctor, while looking at the shoulder MRI, found an incidental bone lesion that worried her and immediately referred me to see a Bone/Tumor Specialist. In the meantime, she also prescribed me to get an MRI of my spine to continue to look into the cause of my pain.

So now the Bone Specialist, while looking into my bone lesion, also took a look at my spine MRI and pointed out to me that I have two herniated discs in my neck that worried him and immediately referred me to a Spinal Surgeon who I am now scheduled to see in two weeks.

Got that?

All of my doctor's visits have been through the same hospital so the sharing of my files/xrays/MRIs has been at every doctor's fingertips. This is a definitely a convenience but it has also resulted in each doctor finding something that 'worried' them that they were not directly looking for in the first place.

It's like the Sports Med Doc said, "I know you came in for this but hey, we found this" and the The Lesion Doc said, "I know you came to see me for this but hey, look at this." At this rate, I'm afraid the Spinal Surgeon is going to take one look at the herniated discs in my neck and then tell me something like my hip needs replaced or that I have diabetes ... or something else irrelevant to the situation. I mean, c'mon, what's next!?

Anyway, to recap, the image of the shoulder MRI, in which the Bone Lesion was found in the first place, doesn't show the entire lesion in my arm. The Bone Specialist needs me to get another MRI of my arm so he can get a better diagnosis of this lesion but he feels that this can wait until the herniated discs are taken care of. (the exact opposite of what my Sports Medicine doctor thought). He also believes that the lesion is just a cyst that has formed inside my arm bone where the bone marrow should be. Probably a result of a bruise that occurred when I hurt my shoulder/arm during the prolonged landscaping of my backyard last summer. The lesion is not showing up on regular xrays and it is not effecting the bone itself so he feels that there is no urgency with this. I also don't have any pain associated with the part of my arm where the bone lesion has occurred. Incidentally, he's also pretty confident that the pressure of the herniated discs on my spinal cord is causing most of my shoulder and arm pain and also why my left hand sometimes falls asleep (but we'll let the Spinal Doctor figure that out).

So we are now looking at the following in this order (I think ...):

Nerve Conductive Test on my left arm next week.
Spinal Surgeon visit the week after. (May result in therapy, injections or spinal surgery ... oooh! doctor's choice!)
MRI of my arm for the Bone Specialist follow up visit.
Then maybe we'll get back to that Sports Med Doc's follow up visit for the shoulder cartilage tear ...