hi

i'm on another forum and i'm popping on here too.

in march 2008 i fell from a galloping bucking horse. I immmediatley felt a tght band of pain, like me chest was being crushed by a vice machine.

the accident was tele-vised and because i looked so well and was so calm only x-rays were taken. It took 2 years of agony just on 2 paracetamol before they found the giant thoracic disc herniation crushing the spinal cord over 3/4 of the way.

operation

I was in as much agony as when i went to hospital with further deterioration

i was told there was nothing wrong. I paid to see a surgeon who found i had a spinal cord injury and brown seqquard syndrome.

I shall explain to the the symptoms i'm sure you may have
tight band around chest
feels like one is having a heart attack
this is pain from the spinal cord..its nerve pain

your adomen and chest muscles will deterorate, thus why sitting up hurts so bad and you may find it hard to cough/be sick

bladder/bowels
i am not able to push out faeces, i need digital stimulation as back/loss trunk muscles cant do it..do not get constipated.
i cant feel when i need to urinate, make sure you go every 4 hours so risk of infection is reduced

you may feel 'pulsing' sensations near the aeorta region, in the back and anywhere below the t7/8 area. these are muscle spasms.
your body will be trying to protect your spnal cord, so nerves send messages to your muscles so you stop the activity and putting pressure on the cord

twisting and bending will hurt bad..thats if you can deal with this. i always spill food down me.

when i sit up me legs pool with blood

walk with your legs apart? this is because your body is trying not to swing the t-spine

t7 is classed as being part of the critical zone..so other autonomic changes will happen lke blood pressure changes...

you will have skin changes too.
you already have nerve/muscle damage...its rare this corrects itself to how it originally worked. The surgery may stop you getting worse..wont take away the pain you already have.

there are many more symptoms, please do feel free to ask me.

i am now deterirating and am having urgent mri scans. i have lots of bone around the cord

the operation went not well, unlike the neurosurgeon said it went well. i cant have the operation thorough the front...too much bone around the cord.

please do ask your surgeon how many t-spine operations they have done...no good having 30 years experience if never seen a t-spine injury. be very careful whom you choose. i am on good pain management course and all the info above is info i got from spinal surgeons. i hve had botox for muscle spasm and it works.

preserve what you have got.

it maybe you have mylopathy...and not a spinal cord injury like me - yet nerve/spasm pain id evil pain.

best wishes

Hi all,

After many shots, injections, my doctor finally sent me to see CClinic specialist thoracic surgeon. He found 3 herniated disc with t7 8 being the worse of the three. It has extruded past the outer lining and into the spinal cord and more, plus " posterior longitudial ligament ossification"???? still havn't figured that one out.
Anyway I am scheduled for the 17th of Oct. He says he going to make an incision in my back at that level and go in and remove the material and do something to the disc , close it up or something like that.
Will he have to take a rib out for that?
Anyway, the pain in my ribs are just like the others said, just like a heart attack. I'm so constipated, I've been taking oxycodone, Contin and Ultram strickly by the doctors orders. at night I take a flexeril to help me sleep.
Driving hurts a lot and laying here in bed typing on my laptop is just as uncomfortable, but I force myself.
I can't wait till it's all over... I have high hopes.. But, I hope that when he's in there he will be able to see the other hern's and see if they have gotten worse since my last ct and myleo. I'd hate to have to go through this again.

take care all.
wish me luck.

Eureka!
I have several herniated thoracic discs, the worst at T6-7. My surgeon (who performed the fusions on my lumbar and c/spine), said there was no surgery for this, and because it is degenerative, it would get worse. I thought, at the time, that he was ONLY referring to the pain. Now I see that may not be the case. I see him again next month and I'll have a ton of questions for him. Thank you so much for posting, I didn't know what to ask the surgeon when he told me this, now I'll have a list of questions! (Maybe he didn't want to ruin my weekend by telling me what may be in store?) I'm still going to search for people that have had surgery on T6-7. Someone, somewhere, must have had one.
My mid thoracic and rib pain is worsening for sure, it takes less and less before it clamps down and that stabbing feeling in my ribs kicks in and makes breathing painful (not pleasant as you know).
How are you doing now? Please let me know how you're doing. Again, thank you for posting.