Question
november last year i had an accident at work on a f.l.t. i was reversing when it cut out. i was jerked vilontley back and forth and felt a click in my lower spine.m r i test results show damaged discs causing severe pain down my right leg and right testicle its been on going since i had the accident and hurts more as i move more throughout the day.as i never had back pain before the accident do you think that this is the cause and will the pain ever go away ?.

Answer
Dear Mark,

I first have to ask, what have you been doing to treat this injury?  Without the knowledge of what you have tried, and what has not worked in the past it is difficult for me to formulate a decent opinion on your prognosis.

However, I will say this...damaged discs themselves can be the source of significant pain, but I would suspect that your disc is bulging in to the neuroforamen( hole where the nerve root exits the spine) and is pressing on the nerve root...may possibly be pressing into the spinal cord itself as well.  This information should be on the MRI results.

Initially, chiropractic care and physical therapy should have been prescribed.  There are multiple types of decompression techniques utilized in both professions to reduce pressure on the discs and spinal nerve roots and this is often very effective.  If you haven't done any of these you need to now.  If you have tried these options and have gotten no better, then you really need to seek out a surgical opinion at this time.  Pain and suffering for longer than 6 months is chronic and very unlikely to get any better if you have already tried conservative approaches.

Pain management options would be to try to anesthetize the disc and nerves which are causing the pain.  This is expensive, and will not fix anything...just get rid of the pain, but these wear off and have been proven to be only marginally effective in trauma cases (less than 50%)...they have a much better success rate in chronic pain patients (degeneration over the years).  So in this case a surgical consult may be your best option if you have already tried other measures.  Hope this helps Mark.

Respectfully,
Dr. J. Shawn Leatherman
www.suncoasthealthcare.net