My dad had an MRI on his back and I do not understand what the doctor found?

ABC,

This is more common than you know. That doesn't mean that Dad is not in pain. I had some similar readings except the affected vertebrae were up in neck area C4-5 and C5-6. I opted for steroidal blocks and have gotten a good degree of relief. Have your dad ask about them - the good and the bad - and see if he wants to try that before having surgery. It's just an injection in the area that is causing him pain. It helps the swelling to go down and the muscles to relax. You get three shots over with 10-14 days between shots and usually do not feel much better until after the third shot.

Good to hear a young person being concerned about their dad

Hi, let me translate for you...

"Posterior disc herniation" is a disc where the gel center is leaking out the back of the disc. This happens when the disc dries out, often due to age, injury, bad posture, or a combination. "Inferior migration" means that it's moved downward. "Effacing" means it's right next to the "thecal sac" which is the collection of nerve roots from the low back that travel down the rest of your body to control your legs, bladder, bowels, etc.

"Foraminal stenosis" means narrowing of the holes between the vertebrae where the nerves come out and nerve root impingement means the narrowing is bad enough that it's touching the nerves (which causes pain). "Facet hypertrophy" is another word for arthritis. Levoscoliosis means his spine has a curve to the left (it should be straight) (if you are looking at him straight on) and straightening of the normal lumbar curvature means that the curve he should have (if you're looking at him from the side) is gone.

For age 60, he has a lot of stuff going on. I would recommend finding a really good chiropractor (and I mean REALLY good) to look at the mri's, take x-rays, and give you an idea of whether or not they can help. With proper spinal alignment, you can stop the progression, and with exercises and rehabilitation he may be able to correct the scoliosis and get the lumbar curve back. His pain will certainly drop. Make sure the chiropractor knows about his surgery so he can help him properly.

Good luck to your dad during surgery.

I don't understand a lot of the specifics there, but I do know that typically herniated discs are repaired with back surgery. In the two people I know that had back surgery for herniated discs, they both actually felt a lot better immediately after surgery, and only improved from there. So good luck to dad.

bad news