Hi. This is my first time on a message board. I decided it was time I reached out and tried to find others that are experiencing the same thing. So here is a bit of background.
I am 22 years old. I live in Northern California. Five years ago I had spinal fusion surgery. They fused L3 to T10. Surgery went well but a year after I pinched a nerve in the left side of my lower back. I had sciatica problems. I ended up getting an Epidural Steroid Shot in 2009 and then another one in June 2013. After the June 2013 shot, I started to have more back pain; it wouldn’t go away, even after the injection site pain wore off. I have been seeing a spine specialist for the past 3 ½ years. After many lower back MRI exams and a nerve conduction study, he was able to determine that the MRI showed nothing and I did not have a degenerative nerve condition with my spine and the muscles surrounding. He then referred me to a rheumatologist.
I have been seeing a rheumatologist for about 5 months now. I have no formal diagnosis. I have had a sonogram on my abdomen (Negative), a hip MRI exam (Negative) and blood tests with HLA – B27 (Negative) and RA (Negative). He has indicated that I have enthesopathy but that is very general. In the beginning I had pain in my ribs, hips and lower back. Mostly now I just have pain in my hips and lower back. Recently, he has indicated on an aqua therapy referral that I also have lumbar spondylitis. I do not know if this diagnosis is 100% as he has never verbally told me this is what I have but I seem to have very similar symptoms to what is described on the internet.
I was wondering if anybody else has had spinal fusion surgery and developed spondylitis of any type? Also I was wondering if there were other people with lumbar spondylitis.
Thanks.
