What does Disc extrusion at T7-T8 at the midline with both superior and inferior extension with mild thinning of the cord and mild myelomalacia mean in layman's terms?

Answer 1

Disc are the cushions in-between the bones in your back they have a tough outside with a jelly like inside. Think of them as the shock absorbers in your back.

Extrusion means to push out. Disc extrusion is a fancy way of saying that the disc is squeezed out of the spot that the doc thinks it should be in.

T7-T8… the bones of your spine are numbered. To make it confusing for all of us non-medical people they are broken up into regions: cervical (neck), thoracic (back) and lumbar (lower back). Instead of numbering the disc also (which to me would make it clearer) they label the disc by what bones it sits between. Therefore, disc T7-T8 is the one between the thoracic bones 7 and 8.

Midline is the middle of your body if you split yourself in half at the midline you wood slice through the center of your nose top to bottom in between your chest through your belly button, etc. You would be cleaved with one arm and one leg in each piece of you.

Superior and inferior are just medical jargon for the stuff that is on the top (superior) and bottom (inferior) if you are standing upright.

Myelomalacia is softening of the spinal cord.

To put it all together you have a disc that is pushed out in the middle of the body on the top and the bottom between the bones T7 and T8 with mild thinning and softening of the spinal cord.