YES
- Dr. Paul’s diagnosis: “general palpable unstable T eight,nine and T9 T10 articulation, That is tendered Touch (some typos here). he also has tenderness in the T 9, T10 and to illustrate T11 costotransverse regions.” and
“Impression/ plan #1instability, of the T8 and T9 articulation front and back, T9 and T10 significantly in the front. “. This is a YES vote because he notes tenderness at T8/9 as well as the costotransverse regions. However, one thing that worries me is that we had the range narrowed down to T10-T11, not T8-10.
- Barbara – she is less skeptical than I am but she’s not as concerned with the surgery ending my active life. I’m afraid that “The Pain” is not from my slipping ribs. My right side is almost identical to my left (floating 10th ribs and slipped 9ths) but is asymptomatic. I worry that The Pain is from Facet Joint Syndrome, my wrecked left ab/core or possibly even an autoimmune disease. The vertebral marrow shows high uptake that the radiologist who specializes in radiology for pain at Stanford, feels is a significant pain generator. If I had more typical symptoms of SRS, like pain at T8/9 near the spine and pain at the subluxated rib tips, I’d be more confident in the diagnosis.
- I was pretty honest with Dr. Hansen about level 8 being too high as well as most of my pain being near the spine and he seemed fairly convinced. AI (that’s my nickname for anything I’ve found on the web) says that a floating 10th rib alone is considered a version of Slipping Rib Syndrome. That means 60% of us have it! Both AI and Dr. Hansen said a congenitally floating 10th rib can be symptomatic.
- One of the Dr. Hansen’s patients in my favorite knife/spear video does’t claim to have much pain at his rib tips, more tightness. I’m not really sure where his pain was because he said his back was tight too but this is the video where Dr. Hansen points out the knife in the back and spear through the body to the costal arch and up to the xiphoid which was the biggest selling point for SRS for me.
- Stomach problems and digestive issues are symptoms of SRS, not FJS
- Everyone as noted that my left back looks bigger than my right back. Visible inflammation is a symptom of SRS, not FJS
- Fuck it – we need to rule everything out. There’s no good fix for FJS so let’s hope it’s SRS.
NO
- Pain has been thought to be from T9-12, actually my left T10/11 facet joint is my best guess. A facet injection at 9/10 felt too high. Maybe I shouldn’t let these levels bother me too much but I don’t have pain at T8 – the location that a subluxed 9th rib should affect. That’s two levels too high! A floating 10th rib can be symptomatic but still, I don’t have pain at the expected places. The original diagnosis was facet arthropathy at T10-12. This correlates more with the levels of my back pain. Dr. O’Neill believed the facet joints to be only part of the problem based on “mixed results” from the ablation. However it all comes down to how I said it made me feel. If I remember correctly, it successfully addressed the spine pain but created more flank and superficial pain (I think it irritated the intercostal nerves. So why did we abandon the facet joint theory so quickly and permanently years ago? I think that was a mistake.
- I seem to get a momentary feeling of muscle tearing or nerve being hit when I bend backwards too far, right at the spot where The Pain is. It seems to be hitting The Nerve, but the only way I can recreate this is with a back bend, again suggestive of Facet Joint Syndrome
- I don’t have a lot of pain at the subluxated rib tips. This is the one symptom that even Dr. Hansen says, if there is no local pain at the rib tips it makes him question the diagnosis.
- I just feel The Pain is from nerve impingement at T10/11, probably one of those three joints that hang together (costotransverse, costovertebral and facet). That would kind of rule out Slipping Rib Syndrome as a pain generator. Now if that’s something I’m willing to do at the cost of being much less active the rest of my life, fine. I’m just not there yet. 🙁
