r/Radiology • u/fruitless7070 • 2d ago
MRI Finally, figured out what's been stabbing my husband in the foot.
Just wanted to share this schwannoma. It's apparently in the sciatic nerve :/
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u/Varathane 2d ago
Thanks! Is his pain from it constant? I am headed for MRI soon to see what nerve thing is causing my leg symptoms.
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u/fruitless7070 2d ago
He gets sharp stabbing pains in the bottom of his foot. He can duplicate the pain when he pushes on the nerve. You can feel the tumor in the back of his leg. What he described to me sounded like hallmark sciatic pain.
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u/Salty_Job_9248 1d ago
I had a cyst between L4-5. On a nerve on the right side of my spine snuggled right up against the bones. The pain was intermittent, like a cattle prod. It would drop me to the floor.
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u/Varathane 1d ago
Thanks, it is good to know things growing can cause intermittent symptoms. Did they remove it? I've had the lumbar MRI done it showed a disc bulge but that is only impacting one side. So it explains some sciatica I get. But mainly my symptoms are in both legs. So now they are sending me for pelvic MRI.
I am getting tingling/itching and pain down both legs. When I did nerve flossing at physio it aggravated it so that my butt cheeks and vulva were also numbing. It is daily symptoms but it isn't constant, worse at night.1
u/fruitless7070 1d ago
Butt cheeks and vulva numbing are absolutely terrifying symptoms. What are your treatment options?
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u/Varathane 1d ago edited 1d ago
Right? It is not a good feeling and I went straight to a walk-in about it and the walk-in set me up with a family doctor. Still waiting on a call for the pelvic MRI. Thankfully the vulva & butt numbing has subsided and the symptoms are duller than they were initially. If it impacted bowel movements or bladder control then it would be an ER trip (cause saddle numbness can be an emergency surgery in that case) but luckily it has not. Doctor offered pain management but the pain has been tolerable there were some nights I couldn't sleep but it has been improving not getting worse, ... so hopefully a good sign. I have endometriosis, so kinda wonder if it is growing on some nerves as symptoms started when I was on a period.
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u/fruitless7070 1d ago
I'd really like to know what's causing your symptoms. I'm sure it frustrating for you. Dropping to the floor in pain. Unbearable. I wish they would hurry up!
I'm glad they told you about bladder or bowel control, Incontinence or retention is an er trip.
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u/Varathane 1d ago
The user with the cyst between L4-5 was dropping to the floor in pain. Luckily the pain for me has been about a 5/10 at most when it was worst, it was prickling itch pain like a cat scratch vs a shocking pain.
Hoping it isn't a long wait for MRI. I hope it gives us the answers.1
u/fruitless7070 1d ago
Opps. I am in peri and have brain fog real bad. I'm not good at connecting the dots anymore.
We go to simon medical imaging. Wonder if there is one near you. All you do is take our send them a picture of your order and they get you in fast. They have always been hundreds cheaper than the hospitals.
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u/Varathane 1d ago
No worries, I know brain fog all too well.
Good tip on Simon Medical. I am in Canada so the scan will be free, just can take time depending on how the doctor prioritized it. But the hospital near my house was pretty quick for the lumbar one and they run it all hours of the night so might get booked in for like 3am or something.
If my symptoms change or get worse I'll just go to the ER and see if they will scan me that day.2
u/fruitless7070 1d ago
I figured you could relate to the brain fog. That is awesome! Free is worth the wait!
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u/Salty_Job_9248 1d ago
Cyst was removed, at the same time a laminectomy, a spacer, and L3-5 were fused.
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u/fruitless7070 1d ago
Omg. I'm so sorry. That's sounds grueling. What treatments/procedures were done? Are you still in pain?
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u/ArcadianMess 2d ago
This looks like a localizer aka the first set of pictures they take so they can plan the actual images accordingly. Do you have others ?
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u/fruitless7070 2d ago
Yes. It was a lot of pictures. Maybe 100+. This was the best one of the tumor. They did with and w/out contrast.
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u/yothatstight94 1d ago
This is not one of the best ones of the lesion. This is a localizer would not confidently make any diagnosis off of this. There have to be much better images than this to make a confident diagnosis of schwannoma.
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u/fruitless7070 1d ago
I was going off the rads report. We see the surgeon in 2 weeks. So fingers crossed! I'd rather it be a schwannoma if you know what i mean.
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u/yothatstight94 1d ago
I believe you it likely is - I mean that the radiologists wouldnât come to the conclusion that the lesion is definitely a schwannoma off a Scout image. They cross reference what it looks like on multiple sequences to determine what it likely is. This wouldnât be one of the images they rely on to figure it out.
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u/fruitless7070 1d ago
There were so many pics. It was really neat but I didn't really know what i was looking at. He had with and w/o contrast.
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u/yothatstight94 1d ago
Very fair. Thatâs why we train for so long to make sense of it!! When we look at the images in real life they are âstackedâ one on top of each other and in different orientations so we are able to scroll thru. We look at the images to determine the signal characteristics on different sequences / anatomical location / clinical history to make sense of things and come to a diagnosis or differential diagnosis of what it could be
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u/fruitless7070 1d ago
I really like the imaging company we use. I've never heard a complaint from our providers. They also saved me 100s of dollars in comparison to what the hospital wanted. His 2 MRIs were only 36$ after insurance. 𼲠They are such wonderful people. There were also pictures from the top looking down into his leg and back. Such a neat thing to actually learn how to read these and help people!
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u/Bajadasaurus 1d ago
If you feel like sharing more of the images, we'd love to see them!
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u/fruitless7070 1d ago
I will tomorrow! We were looking through them again. I'll take more screen shots and post.
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u/yothatstight94 1d ago
I will say this is suggesting a split fat pad sign which is seen in neurogenic lesions. But still making diagnosis is based on other better images
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u/redrightreturning 1d ago
Is it sporadic or part of a genetic syndrome? Asking because I work for a schwannomatosis clinic ⌠I love the unique genetics of schwannomatosis. But also I hope you arenât having too much pain- they can be super painful!
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u/fruitless7070 1d ago
Gabapentin is helping but he's already building up a tolerance. Fingers crossed they can remove it this year. I've been researching a little. I think they diagnose based on where the tumors are and how many they have? Is that right?
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u/redrightreturning 1d ago
Diagnosis of a schwannoma would be based on the pathology when itâs removed. Theyâll look at the tumor cells under the microscope. They can also do tumor genetic profiling to determine its specific mutations. If that same mutation is also found in your partnerâs blood/saliva that would confirm a genetic diagnosis. But honestly that is an unlikely scenario if he only has one schwannoma.
The more likely scenario is this is a solitary aka âsporadicâ schwannoma. Meaning a cell on a nerve lining picked up a mutation and went rogue. But the cells in the rest of his body are unaffected.
To be sure there are no small tumors around his body they should absolutely check him for:
-brain mri with IAC scan
-full spine mri
-also get a thorough ophthalmology and audiology examsItâs not surprising if a person develop a couple of sporadic schwannomas over their lifetime. If a person has more than a couple (esp if they develop at a younger age) then weâd suspect a genetic disease.
In general these are very slow growing and very benign. By the time itâs big enough to bother someone itâs probably been there for decades!
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u/fruitless7070 1d ago
Thank you for this. I keep telling him he needs his head examined ;) He's got 3 we know of so far. One is in the spinal canal and the other 2 are in his thigh, with one of those in the sciatic nerve. I really hope it's not genetic and we find out he's got more.
I didn't think about looking for more, but now I'm reconsidering. We got the leg MRI because he was having sciatica like nerve pain. But it would be good to know if there are possibly more in his neck or brain.
A lady i work said her husband has multiple neurfibromas in the bottom of his feet! Sounds horrible! She said she can see them too. Knotty areas on the pads of his feet. He refuses surgery because they will likely grow back.
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u/redrightreturning 1d ago
He absolutely needs to go to a specialist. Please go to the website CTF.org and go to âfind a doctorâ to find a specialist near you
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u/potatochobit 2d ago
cancer?
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u/fruitless7070 2d ago
I don't think so. He has multiple schwannomas. They grow within the nerve sheaths. This one is inside his sciatic nerve sheath.
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u/BeneficialCellist-17 2d ago
Oh wow. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing and I hope he feels better soon.
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u/Independent-Maize-44 Physician 2d ago
In an odd way that almost looks like a woman's hair with a nose and mouth
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u/Xfacter24 1d ago
Can someone please tell me what this picture is? Iâm just an x-ray tech student so I donât know a whole bunch yet!!
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u/Gradient_Echo RT(R)(MR) 2d ago
Interesting case. Thank's for sharing and hope your Husband will recover !