Sudden Low Back Pain. When to seek imaging… OR chalk it up to “it’s just FND”

[seamuspg]

This disorder makes it impossible to know when to get imaging for something damaged / structural issues… or to just chalk it up to a FND symptom. I’ve had every symptom in the book.., BUT never pain. This is new, and pretty severe… I’ve had spine issues in the past but I don’t remember doing anything to warrant this current pain. Is FND known for causing pain? The simple answer is to get an MRI but I know my back doesn’t look good on imaging regardless. Even if it shows disc degeneration, I wouldn’t trust that was the cause. I feel stuck. This disorder strips you of any sort of certainty… Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with pain and ways to know if you should seek further treatment?

[Polki]

always get the imaging. I spent a year and a half in agony because my neurologist was convinced that my pain was due to FND and would not give me a script for an MRI. Instead it turned out my vertebrae has shifted and were pinching the nerves in my spinal cord.

[Misstea]

I hope you got the MRI. In my case, It showed mild spondylosis in my cervical and thoracic region. I should get my lumbar checked too.

[Brear29]

I, ve got disc in my lower back can't get removed because they can put me into a wheelchair but I, m fight each day to stay out of one. I, ve got FND and it, s drive me nuts

[Lecture]

With FND, every exam is a diagnosis of exclusion. As we never know if it's a structural disease or fonctionnal symptoms, it's worth to do every exam to be sure what occurs in our symptoms

Best regards

[Brokendeer]

Hi FND can cause pain through unnatural posture caused by random FND muscle/joint mispositioning and spasms etc. But mainly because of confused nerve signals - each nerve has 3 functions, touch, temperature and pain - so at any one time feedback signals are communicating the status of these 3 things back to the brain.

That does not mean you cannot have a physical cause as well, it just means that FND finds ANY feedback signals hard to pinpoint the cause and prioritise appropriate action/adjustments.

So always best to rule out obvious physical causes, but expect the brain to not necessarily settle down even when you know the answer. I was told once that a person with a disintegrated bone joint shown on X-Ray can have horrendous pain and another person with the same degree of disintegration can have no pain and usually the no pain person finds out accidentally this fact via an X-Ray - so it really is not the imaging that is the biggest concern, more the impact on your daily life.

Think of the people afflicted by phantom pain from limbs they have had amputated - that is not all in their head, yet it certainly is not in their actual limb either?

Sometimes I find relief in stretching the opposite joints to the ones causing pain, it somehow reconfirms to my brain how the true `non-pained' nerve signals feedback should react and a lot of the time, I have noticed my better side taking on the role of controlling my worse side and sharing the brain synapsis.

For example: holding something in one hand and drawing with the other hand improves my control feedback and coordination, also in household tasks like wiping down a counter etc.

In a must move scenario; I can occasionally trick my back and legs into temporary coordination, by shifting weight side to side from one leg to the other or flexing my back this strengthens the nerve and neuro feedback loop - mind it is usually only a temporary mobility fix. Still every little helps!

Look for the calm in the storm!