Sudden lower body pain

About two weeks ago, my mum developed pain in her pelvic bone, much more on the right side, and squeezing pain in her legs, with occassional spike in pain. She was managing it with paracetamols, 2 tabs three times daily. 

Since we didn't know any particular orthopedist in private hospitals (it was only recently that I remember Dr Prashant), I targeted one at KPJ Penang Specialist Hospital since it's in mainland Penang (instead of on the island). I made appointment for my mum with Dr Joehaimey since he has the earliest suitable date.

The moment she walked through his door, he immediately asked her whether the pain from her right side. We were both quite impressed. He was in turn impressed with mum's prepared list of medication that she presented to him on a piece of paper. The key information seems to be the surgery she had back in 2011 to insert titanium plate and screws in her lower spine. He guessed that there's accumalated wear and tear due to aging. So to confirm it, X-ray was first ordered. Blood test was also ordered to rule out infection. Both results would be discussed at the next appointment 6 days later.

Meanwhile, mum was prescribed Norgesic and Lyrica to manage the pain. Unfortunately, occassionally she had to also take paracetamol (one tab) to get the pain level to bearable level. The sudden spike in pain from the pelvic area still happened. The slightly good news was that there was no longer squeezing pain in her legs, only occassional pain when the spike came about. There was, however, occassional cramping.

The X-ray showed there was a bone protruding out of the spine into onto the space where the spinal cord is (which contains nerves). This sounded like bone spur (osteophyte), which I asked the doctor for confirmation. He either didn't hear me or there was language barrier. That is one downside with Dr Joehaimey: he appeared to have some difficulties in communicating in English. Anyway, in any case, the radiologist's report, which I obtained after the appointment, did indicate osteophytes but I can't tell whether it was referring to that particular protusion of not.

The doctor's best guess is that this protruding bone is pressing on the nerves and thus causing pain. This can only be confirmed via an MRI. Even if it's true, he would not perform surgery to remove it because it's "very, very risk...level 3 risky" as it involves removing the titatium plate and screws too. The only other option is to manage the pain with medicine. Once again, due to language barrier, I couldn't understand his response to my question of whether medicine would be adequate to manage the pain given that he said that it would gradually worsen over the years.

After discussing with my sister, we decided (with my mum's agreement) to seek second opinion. Just in case the second doctor orders an MRI regardless of whether one was already done, we decided to save time, effort and money by not proceeding with MRI at KPJ.