OT: Spinal Fusion: Good or Bad? Experiences?

[Mr Tech]

After suffering for years with neck pain I started to have problems (pain, numbness & tingling) in my right arm & hand also.

The surgeon told that a nerve was being pinched in my neck and I had degenerative disk desease in C5,C6 & C7. He also said that if it didn't get fixed I could probably end up with my right arm & hand being paralized. That was enough to convince me to go for the surgery.

In my case the surgeon removed the 3 disks and also cut away the vertebra around the disks as it was also pinching on the nerve root. Then he inserted a single bone graft (fusion) in the place of the removed disks. He then installed a titanium plate & screws to hold it all together.

It was a pretty scary surgery, especially with the grinding of the vertebra around my spinal cord.
But the surgeon was great and the results were fantastic.
I was in the hospital for 2.5 days and recovery was very fast. A soft neck brace was optional and not required due to the plate holding everything together and promoting the fusion. I now have zero neck or arm pain and about 90% neck mobility.
The surgeon wanted me to take 4-6 weeks off work, but my job is pretty sedetary so I only took 2 weeks off and felt fine.

Picking the right surgeon can be tough. In my case my wife works for a prominent knee surgeon and he highly recommend a surgeon friend of his who he said was the best "neck guy" in the business. He did a great job on me. He even prayed for me before wheeling me into the OR.

Let us know when you are going to have this done and we will surely keep you in our prayers.

Good luck

[tigerwoodKhorns]

So the moral is go to the best doctor and be pushy and investigate on your own.

Chris, thank you! How, though, do you find the "best doctor?" I googled the doc I saw on Wednesday (Robert Harf), but found really no useful info (there are some for-fee sites, but who knows what they'd tell).

I'm not a doctor and have no experience at all, but a good course of action is to completely restructure your diet and get down to a good weight, which means moderate exercise and eat right (no fad diets, just eat healthy foods). Also try physical thereapy first. They can advise you on what exercises to do that will not harm you with your condition. If it does not work, then seek a surgery. With your situation it probably will not work if you have a bone spur or somthing like that, but the stretching is good for your and you may get in the habit of doing the exercises.

I am sitting in the massage chair right now getting ready to do my stretching. It is annoying but keeps me going. I wake up a little stiff in my back, the chair loosens it up and then the exercises get me set for the day. It beats not being able to walk.

[oscarsear]

 

After suffering for years with neck pain I started to have problems (pain, numbness & tingling) in my right arm & hand a surgery.

In my case the surgeon removed the 3 disks and also cut away the vertebra around the disks as it was also pinching on the nerve root. Then he inserted a single bone graft (fusion) in the place of the removed disks. He then installed a titanium plate & screws to hold it all together.

It was a pretty scary surgery, especially with the grinding of the vertebra around my spinal cord.

But the surgeon was great and the results were fantastic.

I was in the hospital for 2.5 days and recovery was very fast. A soft neck brace was optional and not required due to the plate holding everything together and promoting the fusion. I now have zero neck or arm pain and about 90% neck mobility.

The surgeon wanted me to take 4-6 weeks off work, but my job is pretty sedetary so I only took 2 weeks off and felt fine.

Picking the right surgeon can be tough. In my case my wife works for a prominent knee surgeon and he highly recommend a surgeon friend of his who he said was the best "neck guy" in the business. He did a great job on me. He even prayed for me before wheeling me into the OR.

Let us know when you are going to have this done and we will surely keep you in our prayers.

Good luck

 

 

My neck surgery was supposed to go this way and did not. I am in the business and I really checked my surgeon out. To quote the man I was only the 2nd person he'd had ever had a bad outcome with. Not trying to scare anyone but when these guys tell you the potential consequences of a procedure they ain't just whistling Dixie. They speculated after my procedure that a sizable bone spur had clipped the nerve root.