Anti-Aging Information

Your physician can learn a great deal by lifting your lower leg while your thigh is flexed up toward your chest. This test is called Lesegue's Sign, named after the Frenchman who first discovered another way of torturing you. This maneuver stretches the third lumbar nerve root as it meanders out through your sciatic notch. It is an easy diagnostic test your doc can do while you are lying flat on your back, which is usually your position of
choice anyway and the extent of movement you'll want to undergo.

In this age of legalistic medicine, your physician will most likely order front and side views of your lumbar spine. These X rays are low on the yield side both in specificity and sensitivity. Lumbar spine films are one way of early on detecting forward slippage (spondylolisthesis) of one of your lumbar vertebrae over another or an arch defect (fracture) posteriorly without actual slippage (spondylolysis). Your physician can also see "lipping"that is, growths around individual vertebrae due to osteoarthritis or narrowing of your intervertebral disc spaces from this or an earlier degenerative process or injury.

In the majority of cases, you may have an abnormal X ray or, at worst, an X ray