Neck MRI : Do I need to be worried about this?

NOTE: OP edited initial post per discussion below, and also deleted a list of technical MRI results, so this now doesn't make much sense, but I'm not deleting or changing it.

Okay, @silentflutes, I'm afraid I'm going to get a bit snarky here. Because your thread raises so many questions... Starting with: why TF is a yoga teacher insisting on MRIs???!!! Do you have obvious physical limitations that might prevent you from doing certain poses in yoga, or do you just have chronic neck pain like so many of us who don't have back pain? What TF kind of poses does this teacher intend to have you do that would require some kind of major physical assessment and do you really need to do that kind of yoga?

I was really having a hard time putting my finger on what is wrong with all of this, and I think I just figured it out: you've got the MRIs, and now you have to wait a whole week for the medical assessment. So you made the dubious decision to ask anonymous strangers on a forum about your medical test results, which, as Cactusflower indicated, is totally inappropriate for this particular forum, and which I will also say is totally inappropriate, period. This is not good common sense!

One of the lessons we TMSers need to learn is patience. STOP. BREATHE. And then, @silentflutes, before you post, mindfully consider whether your post makes sense within the context of this forum and what we do.

Of course, as my initial questions indicate, I personally think that this whole thing doesn't make sense at all, and that's based on my personal experience. I had debilitating neck spasms for a couple of decades "before Sarno" and my chiropractor at the time recommended yoga, and she noted how I clearly did much better whenever I was in a regular class. This was a chiro who never even took X-rays, much less demand MRIs (back then they didn't hand out MRIs to anyone who asked). I certainly wasn't doing any radical poses (I still don't) and my chiro specifically advised me to avoid headstands - but that wasn't a problem because every single yoga teacher I've ever had has ALWAYS had alternative poses in place of the challenging poses, such as headstands.

How much does fear play into this? As in, yes, you feel like you want to do yoga, or perhaps you feel like you should want to do yoga, but unconsciously you also fear it? Is that actually what your yoga teacher is responding to?

 

Okey dokey - yes, that makes a little more sense. This teacher undoubtedly did sense your fear about doing yoga.
FYI, I'm not going to edit my post, because I think that everything we write is educational on some level.

I guess one of my universal issues to begin with is my sense that MRIs are done far too casually these days - and that it's all about the medical industry and it's all about money. And, as Dr. Sarno himself discovered from many years of observations, MRIs were absolutely meaningless when it came down to the reason why so many of his patients had pain.

I had consistent tightness in the back of my neck for more than twenty years before I had my TMS crisis and discovered Dr. Sarno in 2011. It might have all started even farther back in 1983 (age 32) when I actually broke my C6 or C7, I forget which one, AND I whiplashed myself, falling flat on my front and snapping my head back when I caught an edge on a fast downhill ski run. It was a simple fracture, totally healed in six weeks, and completely pain-free in twelve weeks - until I started having neck pain and disabling spasms ten years later - which of course was not long after I turned 40 years old, which is a big f'ing deal as we all start thinking about death and mortality at age 40.

I didn't learn about TMS and unconscious rage until the year I turned 60, but it was undoubtedly at work twenty years earlier. Yet I never had any x-rays, much less any MRIs. I found a chiropractor who in the long term was frustrated that she couldn't "fix" me, but she kept me going for a long time without the really disabling spasms, especially during the stress of many tax preparation seasons. As I mentioned, she also urged me to do yoga (and swim). When I discovered Dr. Sarno and did the work in 2011, I simply stopped seeing her. She really had done her best with the knowledge and belief that she had (and she was very reasonable and NEVER signed me up for a program of multiple adjustments for many weeks; after the initial crisis that first brought me in she said "as needed" very quickly).

All of which is to say that when I hear "consistent back of the neck tightness" to me this is meaningless, and 100% pure TMS.

 

The PPD Association has a practitioners directory. Do a web search for "ppd association directory" and you should find it. I have no idea who might be listed but it is organized by state.