Anterior cervical discectomy with fusion
 

Hi all,

I had ACD with fusion on July 12. Prior to the surgery I had left upper arm pain and upper spine and neck pain. I did not have numbness in my hands. About a week ago I started to get tingling and numbness in both my hands and horrible joint pain in all of my body. I am not sure if my new symptoms are a result of the surgery or not. Has anyone experienced new symptoms following their surgery? I have a visit tomorrow with the neurosurgeon and will address with him, but curious what your experience has been.


Thanks!
Lee

I moved your post there to the Spinal forum, you can also use the search tool for other posts mentioning fusion and symptoms..

Lee, my money is on the surgery for the new symptoms.

I have so many complications from hip replacement in 2010....Nerve Damage, IT Band Damage, Shorter Leg.....never had these before the hip job.

I am getting relief from the Nerve Burn/Tingle with Sphingolin and Inosine supplements...I've posted about them here. But thigh is about 80% numb.

I often feel regret for this surgery. But I have no groin pain, the main reason I did this. So a lot of side effects from the trauma surgery. I limped before and I still limp, build up my shoe, and work with mega amounts of topicals and supplements to get me thru my days.

Dont know if this helps, but if you were in a cervical collar for a long while, your neck muscles may have become weak. Fusion is one thing but your deep and superficial muscles need to work together to hold the neck in the right position. If they dont work, the neck pokes forward, extends and the base of the neck where it joins the thoracic spine gets into further stress. Which means C7-T1 junction where a lot of the nerves go to the hands etc get messed up.

Ask your Dr about cervical isometrics to build strength up. My reading suggests its often prescribed for this reason.

Help Cervical MRI
 

i have had horrible neck pain for some time ( years) I finally got an MRI can anyone tell me if you see anything to worry about? I'm a 41 year old female. Right now my doc just has me on narcotic pain Medes 10/325 , but I'd like to ensure I have liver function left in 10-20 years so don't want to keep taking such high doses. I'm seeing words like cyst, bulge, protrusion etc and don't really under stand what it all means or if it's just normal aging ?? :confused:
Details
Narrative
MR cervical spine without contrast:

HISTORY: 41-year-old with chronic neck pain.

TECHNIQUE: MR imaging of the cervical spine was performed on 9/25/2015
using multiple planes and multiple sequences. No intravenous contrast
was administered.

COMPARISON: Cervical spine x-rays from 5/8/2014

FINDINGS:

There is straightening of the cervical lordosis. The cervical thoracic
junction is well aligned. The heights of the vertebral bodies are
maintained. There is no evidence of compression fracture or
spondylolisthesis. The intervertebral spaces heights are maintained.
There is subtle disc desiccation throughout the cervical spine. There
is no bone marrow signal abnormality. There could be subtle
ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament.

The cord signal is normal. The partial evaluation of the cerebellar
tonsils and foramen magnum is unremarkable.

C2-C3: There is mild right facet disease. There is moderate right
foramina narrowing. The left foramen is patent. There is no central
canal stenosis.

C3-C4: There is disc osteophyte complex, moderate to severe right facet
disease. There is moderate to severe right foraminal stenosis. The left
foramen is patent. There is no central canal narrowing.

C4-C5: There is mild right facet disease and minimal disc bulge,
without foramina narrowing or central canal stenosis.

C5-C6: There is mild bilateral facet disease with a miniscule left
facet 3 mm synovial cyst. There is no significant disc bulge. There is
mild left foramina narrowing. The right foramen is patent. There is no
central canal stenosis

C6-C7: There is central disc protrusion. There is no foramina
narrowing. There is mild effacement of the chest is signal, without
central canal stenosis.

C7-T1: Unremarkable.

Impression
Straightening of the cervical lordosis.
Equivocal ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament, that can
be associated to ankylosing spondylitis or diffuse idiopathic skeletal
hyperostosis
Spondylotic degenerative changes, resulting in moderate right foramina
narrowing at C2-C3 and moderate to severe right foraminal stenosis at
C3-C4.
Central disc protrusion at C6-C7, with mild effacement of the anterior
CSF signal, without central canal stenosis.

Component Results
There is no component information for this result.

I bolded some of the main points I noticed.
This sticky thread has terminology info-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread115890.html

It might be helpful to list and describe pain locations and any other symptoms, as it can then be related to what the MRI report shows.

Have you had any PT at all to see if that helps limit some of the pain?
The straightening of the cervical lordosis can often be helped to get back into proper postural alignment.
Perhaps expert chiropractic might be worth seeking out, even if only for evaluation/assessment/opinion.

If you want to make your own thread , here is the link to do so-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/ne...newthread&f=22