I was involded in a car accident and have a pretruding disc at l5s1 my doctor said it has dark disc syndrone?what ever that means..lol my main problem other than constant discomfort is from time to time i will get a stabbing pain in my back that is 8+ on a 10 scale of pain. he has done a few spinal epiderhals and 3 facet joint nerve blocks on me. today when I went in to see him he had scheduled another nerve block but decided against doing it and said I need to have a disc o-gram done. I have read up on some of this and seems there are a few different points of view on how they feel. I was wondering if somebody may give a self experience with this procedure and inform me what I should expect after the procedure. I teach martial arts for a living and from what the doctor says this could be very painful after the procedure.???

thank you

I had a discogram to assess my L4/L5 disk about 6 months ago as I was going to have surgery at L5/S1 and the surgeon wanted to assess how good the disk was above this one. The procedure wasn't really painful at all - say 2 out of 10 at most - and the next day was down to 1 out of 10.

Before the procedure I was given a large intravenous shot of antibiotics, however this made me vomit immediately! My radiologist mentioned this could happen however it had never happened to him before and he has done this procedure hundreds of times. You might like to make sure there is a bin handy if and when you have this done!

The next thing he did after I felt better was to insert a needle very carefully under xray guidance into the disk. In actual fact he first puts a sterile needle in part of the way and then a second sterile needle through this first one into the disk so that no traces of skin bacteria are transported deep inside. It was slightly uncomfortable, but as I said not that bad. Then he pumped some dye through the needle into the disk and took a few more xrays. Again - for me - this didn't hurt much at all.

All in all the most painful thing for me was the worry! It did hurt a little, in the grand scheme of things - for me - it wasn't too bad :)

Hope this helps.. cass

Had it done this year! Hurt like nothing I have had done to date, including the post op surgery. It took about two weeks before I felt back to my usual self again. But felt much better in a about 5 days. It agitates nerves, etc and the dye takes a bit to rid of itself in the system afterwords. Drink gobs of water after.. it helps to flush the dye out.

The test is a great test though. It showed what an MRI did not for me and surprised the doctor as he thought my l5/s1 disc was the cause of my pain. It turned out it was the l4/l5.. it was ruptured and badly leaking. MRI did not show this.

Best of luck to you. Tammy:wave:

I've had two discograms - the first one was positive at two levels and the second was postive at three. I'm sorry to say that it is a very painful test if it's positive.:eek: Most doctors will give you some sedation and put you in 'twighlight' :yawn: - you're not really awake and you're not really asleep. :yawn: you need to be awake enough to tell them what you are feeling. Check with your doc and see if he uses sedation for discograms. If it's positive you will more than likely be in some increased pain for a few days up to 2-3 weeks afterwards. Your doctor will likely give you something for the increase in pain.

One thing my doctor told me was to drink as many fluids as I could afterwards. The more you drink the faster you'll flush the dye out of your system and start to get your pain levels back down to normal.

If I had to have another one done, I wouldn't be thrilled about it:dizzy: but I would absolutely have it done. A discogram shows things that an MRI or CT scan can't.

Anything else I can answer for you?:wave:

If there is no problem with the disc, it isn't painful......if there is a major problem it is horrendous. Had mine done years ago with no sedation. I did have major problems and the discogram was only done as a prelude to surgery.

The painfulness of the procedure is a direct indicator of the health of the disc being tested so many physicians don't want you sedated while they are doing it so they can get an accurate picture of your pain. This is the best way to determine if they are operating on the correct disc. You may have a disc that has herniated and looks bad on the MRI but the fact is it may not be the one responsible for your pain. So this test makes sure the surgeon has got it right.

casshasabadback, your disc is probably in good shape and that is great as your problems are probably limited to one level.

Hi pooby - yes the disk that was being assessed showed up to be fine, and hence luckily I didn't feel any substantial pain.

well thanks for the information, the mri has showed that I have dark disc syndrone (what ever that is) and I have nagging pain all the time in my lower back but the real problem I have is the shooting pains I get from time to time that feel like somebody stabbed you in the back. they come and then gone but are terrible.

anybody care to take a stab at what is causeing the shooting pains?? this is your chance to play doctor :jester: hehe

It is scheduled for next thursday and I appreciate you guys giving me some light of what to expect. I can handle whatever it is but the unknown is what bothers me to death..:dizzy:

thanks so much!!

The shooting pains sound like sciatica - when people ask me what it feels like I always say like someone has stabbed you with a knife and then twisted the blade a bit :mad: :mad: Not that I have ever been stabbed tho!!