hi have finally got my mri spinal results back. I think it is good news but not sure what it means. Anyone have a clue to what the following means? "The mri of your spine with contrast showed what we think is a normal variant in the posterior spinal artery in the mid thoracic region .I think it might be helpful to see you once more given the scan findings which I think are incidental . Would appreciate if anyOne has an idea on what that means. Why did he put think twice surely if it was a normal variant they would know!! thanks in advance.
I think it’s positive news in the sense an “arterial variant” certainly isn’t an MS-indicator. There is no suggestion in the report of anything that looks like demyelination.
He appears to think it’s unusual, but probably not the cause of your symptoms. It’s not unusual for people to discover they have minor anatomical peculiarities, whilst being investigated for something else. My dad had an extra rib!
I’m not sure if you’re a boy or a girl, so I won’t get into to much detail of what we found when I had my first smear. Let’s just say I’m plumbed in a way that only 15% of women are - but it’s not a fault, it’s a variant. LoL!
Tina
thanks for the reply. Absolutely over the moon it’s not MS just curious now why they want to bother with another appointment??
Perhaps because your symptoms - which I’m assuming you still have - remain unexplained?
A lot of people are annoyed if they are discharged without finding the cause, so it seems he’s being thorough, which can only be a good thing.
As you have mentioned yourself, his letter seems to express some degree of uncertainty about whether the feature observed on your scan could be contributing to symptoms, or is just a benign natural variant. Perhaps he wants to discuss in more detail how sure they are, and whether they should keep it under consideration. And if not, what about next steps?
I don’t think there’s anything bad about him NOT saying: “We couldn’t find anything wrong - go home and put up with it!”
Tina