So the most disheartening thing a doctor has said to me is that I have more severe degenerative changes in my spine than would be expected for my age and that there was no way to change these and they would get worse with time. I came away that day feeling severely depressed and feeling that my life was not worth living any more. Having read information recently on the poor correlation between MRI results and pain and function, I now know that there are many people with worse changes on MRI who are leading perfectly normal lives and not in pain and that is what I am trying to focus on