Understanding Bertolotti Syndrome - A Patient Guide. Bertolotti Syndrome is a rare condition affecting about 4-8% of patients with the anatomy (lumbosacral transitional vertebrae) and is completely misunderstood. It often sits quietly in the background, visible on imaging but not always recognised as the source of a person's pain. You may have sat in appointments trying to explain something that does not fit into simple words that make sense to others. You may have been told your your scans look "normal" or that what you are feeling should not be as significant as it is. You may have tried treatments that helped temporarily, or not at all, and walked away wondering if you were missing something, or if something was being missed.This book exists in that space. The space between what you feel and what you have been told. A person can be dismissed due to the lack of knowledge in lumbosacral transitional vertebrae by a doctor and even when it is acknowledged doctors have been taught to ignore it as a source of pain based on old research and look at it as insignificant and not connected to your symptoms.This book is not written as a clinical textbook. We have put together this guide, which can give you clarity on the medical understanding of this syndrome and the genuine experience we are living. Understanding Bertolotti Syndrome is not enough, how it feels and how it behaves with our every movement is very much how it impacts our everyday life. You may see yourself, your story in some parts of this book. The delayed pain. The flare-ups that happen that you have no idea why, and why some treatments helped briefly, or why some did not help at all. The treatments that gave you more pain. Most importantly, why nothing has been fully explained. This book aims to change that. We are not offering a quick fix, what we hope to do is provide some understanding. If you can understand what is happening to you and just maybe this something has a name, something inside you totally changes. You begin to make sense of your experience. You begin to understand what is happening and start to understand your pain patterns. You begin to understand what is happening to you and gain a better understanding of what comes next. That is when your path of recovery and accepting your condition can begin.
