Any idea what this is? Could it be an annular tear that was missed by two radiologists?
I've had severe highly centralized lumbar pain around L5S1 coupled with severe stiffness for more than 2 years. It almost feels like there is a painful stiff "knot" around L5S1. I have a lot of stiffness and pain in flexion, occasional one-off snapping/popping in extension and lots of localized L5S1 pain if hanging in decompression. Sitting hurts, standing hurts, everything hurts. Laying down and sleeping at night is the only time I get some relief. No relief with P/T and almost everything causes pain.
I've had 2 MRIs a year apart. They both look very good, there are no changes between scans and neither radiologist noted anything significant, however their comments were quite different and they likely flew through them with 5 minutes of analysis based on what I know about our healthcare system.
I requested the MRI files and everything looks great, but there is a weird thing going on at L5S1. I'm wondering if they might have missed this and this might be a possible explanation for my pain. It looks a bit like an annular tear based on my google search comparisons. I originally thought it was just an artifact or something because neither of them mentioned anything about it.
Anyone have any thoughts?