First you have to have the correct diagnosis. The symptoms should be lower back pain on the articulation side. Loading of the spine should aggravate the symptoms. The MRI STIR images should “light up” at the articulation site to indicate that there is bone reactivity which can cause the pain you have. Then finally, an injection of numbing medication into the site should temporarily relieve the symptoms.
If those criteria are satisfied, then you have two choices, fuse the segment or remove the aberrant articulation (which is what is suggested). Removing the articulation has somewhat less success than fusion but is still acceptable. Fusion doesn’t generally reduce range of motion much as this should be a very stiff segment. The way to determine if it is stiff is to perform flexion/extension X-rays. Normally, this segment will have 20-25 degrees range of motion.
Dr. Corenman
