Well, evey time I re-read a post I see what mistakes I have made and as we get closer to figuring this out I can't believe how obvious the answers were. Does that make since? Why not do a neck x-ray when you have a concussion with whip lash?? A year later you discover your 10 year old neck is completely out of whack why not demand more testing done then? why did I wait 6 weeks...I know the doctors we have seen so far are doing what they know to do. I know our neurologist is throwing pills at Clay and increasing the doses of the medication when we complain, because he is trying to improve Clay's quality of life, make the headaches less painful. Why not ask yourself, "why is this 10 year old having headaches?' I don't know...he was just treating the headaches. Then a friend suggest we see a chiropractor. At this point I will try anything...the first day, he puts his hands around Clay's neck and his eyes widen and he immediately knows what our problem is. He does an xray to confirm and it is painfully obvious his vertebrae are complelety out of line. We are told it will take 6-8 weeks of adjustments and his neck muscles should begin to strengthen and hold the adjustment. At week 6, there was an obvious improvement. We would go for an adjustment on Monday then Tuesday and Wednesday were wonderful days, headache free days, old Clay day's. By Thursday afternoon his eyes would loose their twinkle, his face would get pale...by Friday he felt horrible. We would get another adjustment and he would be good as new for a 2-3 days and the cycle continued. I tried my best to give our chiropractor the 8 weeks he asked for but I am not a patient person. I made an appointment with our favorite orthopedist that havs put close to a dozen cast on Lawrence kids. He could feel a misalignment but wanted to rule everything out so he ordered an MRI. The first MRI did not work because Clay's braces made halos over the images. We tried a second MRI at Phoebe with a higher magnet field and they were able to get a better picture. As they were doing the MRI I told the tech that the doctors were mainly interested in his C1C2C3 vertebrae. The tech told me that they could not see these vertebrae but they saw enough to know what was going on. My follow up for the results was not until Friday morning. This was Tuesday. I was very anxious (imagine that) because I was told by our chiropractor and orthopedist that the MRI would be negative and now the tech has told me they "see enough." What the hell did that mean? Friday morning came around and we have an adjustment appointment at 9:15 and a orthopedist appointment (across the hall) at 10:15. My heart sunk when I walked back to see both the chiropractor and doctor in the room together waiting for me. They proceeded to tell me that Clay has a ruptured disc in his c5c6 vertebra. The vertebrae was pressing against the part of the spinal chord that carries the nerves to the brain and leaking fluid which was irritating tho spinal chord. They explained that it was about shoulder level and when he bends his head down to read, sit at his desk, eat...it bulges that disc out pressing on the spinal chord even more. They said at his age there is still a blood supply to the disc, that with medication, rest and physical therapy this could be fixed. HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE LORD!!! An answer and a solution!!! I like it!!!
I was on a high all day Friday, an answer, an answer, an answer....then came the self inflicted guilt. My poor child has been walking around for 14 months with a ruptured disc and having suribrospinal fluid headaches and all we did was throw pills at him.....why did I wait so long...and then the next rinkle came....his pediatrician contacted me and told me this was not something we wanted to do in Albany. He informed me that we had one shot at fixing this right and we needed to see a pediatric orthopedic spine specialist at Children's Hospital in Atlanta. SERIOUSLY...........It never crossed my mind that this was rare and that a child's neck and spine is nothing like an adults. By the age of 25 your disc between your vertebrae became hard and no longer absorb fluids. So this is a totally different ball of wax we are dealing with. This is an injury that happens in less that okay, set it up, we will be there, tell me when and where....
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