Hello out there... my boyfriend (age 47) had c5/c6 surgery about 5 weeks ago, they fused his neck together, with his actual bone, just wrapped it in a plastic band, and then screwed everything back together. Prior to surgery his symptoms were agonizing pain through his right arm, problems lifting and gripping anything with his hand, numbness, and weakening of the entire arm, along with severe pain in his shoulders and neck. A highly recommended neurosurgeon preformed this surgery, this same surgeon did lower lumbar surgery on him, just this past April.
My darling is as far from a good patient as can be imagined, he is a former football player, body builder and all around athlete... he has been lifting and moving and just all around doing, granted not as much as he would be with a clean bill of health, but none the less, he's doing what a normally average healthy adult would be doing. He doesn’t have what it takes to just sit still, and nagging, yelling and pleading doesn’t change his physical actions. So please don’t give advice on telling his to take it easy, trust me, I do.
It's been 5 weeks now and he feels just as bad, if not worse than he did the week prior to surgery, and the pain is in the SAME arm, no pain in his left, all still in his right. He's continued to take the muscle relaters, recently just came off a week of steroids to reduce swelling, and is back on percoceit because of the severity of the pain over the past week. Has anyone out there had a similar experience? Any help or suggestions at this point would be greatly appreciated.