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Can anyone here explain what their spinal looked like?

When my neuro pointed out "lesions" it looked more like one long snake, from my neck, to the middle of my back.

My previous post was about Devics syndrome. In reading about the comparison of an MS spinal to a Devic's spinal, I litterally get chills up my spine. No pun intended

.

If you are Asian it's a possibility... If not it's very unlikely.

I'm definately not Asian, so I guess that's a plus?

Devics has never been mentioned by my neuro, but it is concidered extremely rare and I was concerned that many neurologists have never seen a Devics MRI, and there is not a whole lot of info about it. In fact, people can't even find a support group for this.

Anyway, I just always thought my spine looked extremely bad, considering it's a huge snake of a lesion.

The thing that allerted me was reading that MS spines typically have lesions that only span a couple vertabrae.

Jim_P wrote:Can anyone here explain what their spinal looked like?

Here's the text from my MRI report dated 10-31-2001. Apparently, I had a lesion at the site of a bulging disc. I had always had problems with my back ever since I was in a car accident in which I was rear ended on the freeway about 7 years earlier. About a year after the date of this MRI I did about 3 months worth of massage therapy and that helped my back quite a bit.

Impression:
MR imaging of the cervical spinal cord demonstrates only minimally increased T2 signal intensity within the spinal cord at the C6-C7 disc space level, the site of the prominent diffuse disc bulge. Findings are less prominent than on the prior examination. Imaging of the cervical spinal cord is otherwise unremarkable.

Text:
MR Cervical Spine.

Technique: Sagittal and axial T1 and T2 images were obtained of the cervical spine with and without contrast.

Findings: There is straightening of the cervical lordotic curvature. At the C6-C7 level there is a broad-based, disc bulge which causes anterior extradural indentation of the thecal sac without compete effacement of CSF anterior to the spinal cord. There is not a focal disc herniation.

There is mild narrowing of the neural foramen, bilaterally. There is no alteration in spinal cord contour. There is minimally increased T2 signal intensity within the spinal cord posterior to the inferior aspect of C6 and the superior aspect of C7 which is distinctly less prominent than on the prior examination.

Spinal cord at other levels is normal. There are no structural alterations of the foramen magnum.

NHE

Here's a linguistic distinction that might be worth pointing out: in Britain, the word "Asian" refers to people of Indian descent whereas I think American, (or at least American porn*), referred to those of oriental origin.



*Hours of intensive research have gone into this statement .

Jim,

In Asia, they have what they call OSMS, or Optico Spinal Multiple Sclerosis. It is apparently the same thing as Devic's. The lesions are long in nature on your spine; there are some good pics on http://myelitis.org. There are numerous support groups for NMO/Devics. The one I liked best is Gayle's place, or http://devic.org.uk. It's a community much like this one. It is rare, but not unheard of in non-Asians. I have no idea why it's more prevelant in the Far East, but it seems to be. It does have more virulent relapses and can take away involuntary functions during a relapse since it's on your spine and can be in bad places on your spine. It's a nasty thing to have unless you are one of the 5% or so that have Devic's in a CIS type of fashion.

Since it is Transverse Myelitis + Optic Neuritis, reading up on TM is very helpful. Like I said, my neuro had me diagnosed as Devic's for about two years, but when I started showing brain lesions, he changed it to MS. Rudi is right that it is rare, but when you get on Gayle's place and root around you will see that it is not unheard of. These guys were describing relapses like I'd never heard of. Very frequently the patient would end up immobilized temporarily during a relapse and then come out of it. Like I said, MS is not something we want, but Devic's seems to be potentially very harsh.

My most prevelant symptoms also steered him to Devic's. If you read up about it; eyes, bladder and bowels are the biggies. Basically if your disease seems to only affect you from the waist down and you have ON, then the Docs get suspicious. At least that's what my Dr. told me (also the lack of brain lesions and only lesions on my spine at that time had him steering that way too). However, keep in mind that it is pretty rare. I checked in to getting the Mayo clinic blood test for it and it was covered under my insurance, so you may see if your neuro. will schedule that test for you to put your mind at ease.