Wow!, I just found you all, it's been a long, long time.
I don't know if some of you remember me, I used to post on the old BT forums, my name has changed, and I prefer not to let out my old one, unless you want to private message me and then I'll tell you.

I just had my second cervical surgery a week ago. Two years ago I had my first ACDF on C6-7, which worked wonders for me, then I started developing problems on C5-6, this disk was starting to go bad when I had the C6-7 done. Well I went through pain management, went through epidural spinal injections all of which didn't work, then I had a cervical discogram done of which showed severe problems with c5-6, with this and my continuing of unrelentess pain and leg numbness I opted to go in again with an ACDF of C5-6 of which my surgeon, pain doc. all stated that these were my only options, the surgery went well, when the surgeon got in there he found that my C5-6 totally collapsed so he had to stretch me in order to get the donor bone in, needless to say I'm very sore, surgeon said that is to be expected due to the stretching of my neck, all in all most of my pain and burning is gone, leg numbness completely gone, and I'm doing ok. I do get tired very quickly.
So it's going to be a long road recovery but I will do it, no bending no lifting, no doing anything. not even sitting for prolonged periods of time.
So I'm trying to read a lot, and laying a lot which feels better on my neck.

All in all I will have a lifetime of maintenance on me, the rest of my neck does have degeneration process going on, plus I have osteophytes everywhere. Plus to top this all off I started with lower back pain last summer, of which I proceeded to get tests done on that, I have L4 L5 and S1 that are showing degeneration as well, and also starting with some mild nerve damage from these areas.

I have other health issues with all of this, lupus, sjogrens, raynauds, glaucoma. All in all I'm still thankful for everyday that I have, and my family has been like a rock for me.

I recognize some names on here, and I hope to get back into the swing of things with the forums.
DaisyMaey

Hi DaisyMae,
Welcome! I had my two level surgery in July and had the same thing as you did. My 6/7 was completely collapsed. I woke up with pain across the top of my back b/w my shoulders. My NS said he had to manipulate me to get my vertebrae apart. The pain only lasted about a week. I had never read or heard of this before. Amazing how it doesn't show up on any scans..

Valerie

I too have never heard of this happening, mine also didn't show up on my MRI, in fact when I had my MRI in January of 06 it showed stenosis, tear, and osteophytes, but as each and every month that went on my symptoms got worse. So I'm going to ask my surgeon that from January to September my disk went completely, and is this a fast rate of disk degeneration disease.

It seems that my disks tend to go quickly, do yours do the same?
I just woke up from surgery extremely sore in the back of my neck, it's somewhat subsiding, my surgeon said that to expect it for almost two weeks and that this would be the majority of my pain.

Good luckk to you.
Daisymae