anyone? SURGERY OF THE NECK IN C5,C6,C6 AND ROD PUT IN NECK TO STRAIGHTEN SPINE?????

This is quite intersting for I myself was involved in an accident. I was a restrained passenger in a truck that just bumped a big old flatbed truck which I am sure caused little if any damage and the driver of the truck I was in decided to make a u-turn and react like a madman. He was really moving fast until he hit a pole and that was that. My back and neck were badly hurt I myself was told by at least 2 people that had surguries to just let it be,in other words they told me to live with the pain (which is being managed with narcotics fairly well) because the men said they were better off before the surgury. My back also has 2 bulging discs but my neck is worse. Any surgury with the neck and back IMO is dangerous though it is rare from what I was told that anyone is worse off than before the surgury's I am no doctor but I still have serious neck and back pain and I am sure will not get any better without going under the knife. I am interseted  who has input with this problem also hoping somebody will let me (or us)  what they decided to do

Age is not really a factor for spinal surgery.  If you would benefit from surgery you would benefit from surgery.  I don't think any surgeon would say you are too young.  To say "all it takes is one tiny slip and boom! your paralyzed if not worse" is misleading, while paralysis is certainly possible, is it highly unlikely with most back surgery.  Most surgeons begin recommending surgery when spinal disease starts to cause permenant nerurologic damage that if left untreated can progress to paralysis. 

Opting to try other treatments first for radiculopathy is completely reasonable.  Most doctors recommend a trial of conservative therapy for six months before considering surgery, and delaying surgery for as long as no permenant nerve damage is being done.  I am curious what type of treatment workman's comp is stalling on.  Usually they support conservative management.

I also am very young with two young children at home. I have several forms of arthritis that have been very difficult to treat. When I was 26, the Drs. started talking about eventually having neck surgery. At that point, the spondylarothrapy was causing fusing, while there were multiple subluxations along my c-spine. I began having radiculopathy (radiating pain in arms and hands) when I was 34. Once this began, the desease progressed rapidly. In addition to the fusing and subluxations, osteoarthritis had caused multiple bone spurs and osteoporosis had caused 3 compression fractures. Within two months of the radiating pain starting, I began having saddle symptoms, (losing control of bladder and bowels) which can't be ignored. I didn't want surgery, and knew if I told the Dr. about these symptoms I'd be in trouble but God has funny ways sometimes. We were at an appt. with my Rhuemmy when my 9yo. began laughing hysterically and said "Mommy pee'd herself again today. Well needless to say, this led to a STAT mri. Come to find out since my prior mri 8 months earlier, everything had progressed so much that my cord was already 30-40% compromised at multiple points along C4-C6. The clincher for me was "one small rearender or a slip and fall and you will be in a wheelchair". So I didn't want the surgery because of fear yet had the surgery because of fear. I had a fantastic nuerosurgeon and am 13 months out from surgery now. Am I perfect, no, am I better, yes. It's all relative, I do have some extra stiffness, especially when it's cold with the metal in my neck. I am not pain free but never would be anyways w/ all my afflictions. I am however, still walking, playing with and hugging my children. They were upfront with the risks which were about the same as not having the surgery. I also feel that if I had been honest w/ my Dr. earlier, I may have had a sligtly better outcome though I am certainly not unhappy with where I'm at. No permanent damage from the surgery, just from the procrastination. Please do your homework on options, risks, benifits, and most important, physicians qualifications and recommendations. I am not a Dr. just a chronic patient and sometimes the best treatment won't fix whats already wrong but will prevent anything from getting worse than it is. Good Luck to you.

hi Kevin, my name is Linda. this is gonna be a very lengthily message, bear with me... and please understand I am very passionate about anyone who has neck troubles, and are worried or concerned and considering surgery......

I wanted to write you about my neck surgery. I'm 39 and have suffered with horrible headaches, and pain in my neck for many many years.. at first the docs diagnosed migraines, like 20 years ago.. then as my symptoms and pain increased, they told me i had a bulging disk at c5 & c6, but that it was fine..*go figure and nothing was needed to be done, they sent me to pt, and basically said deal with it... and so year after year, doc after doc i did that.. delt with the pain, the suicide headaches..... on and off different pain meds, pain management & horrible injections in my neck. i did finally get some relief but not like i had hoped. my quality of life suffered horribly, being as young as i was, a young mom & wife..... sucked.....

about 4 years ago i was in bad shape... I had reached a point where there was not a minute of a day that i wasn't in horrible pain, some days i couldnt get out of bed.... I found a neurosurgeon in my area, which is not easy to say the least... I live in Ohio, and there are 5 doc's in this state that will even think about looking or fixing necks. how sad ya know... we have the Cleveland Clinic, and University hosp. 2 of the best in the country, and only a few docs who will even look at necks.... anyways..... my Dr. is Peter F. he comes from Ontario, and was the head neuro doc for the Detroit lions, and Detroit redwings for many many years.... and he is here and i found him.... and he listened to my horrible life of pain, and took care of me....

when he did the first tests, mri's & catscans etc.. he was shocked that i was still able to walk.. surprised i was not paralysed.. the bulging disks that were no big deal to every doctor i seen and trust me there were damm near 100 of them.... had ruptured.....

when you have a disk that ruptures, due to lack of treatment, and years of wear & tear, it isn't a good thing.. so first of all... if you have bad disks in your neck, the first red flag is.... you NEED to do something... because doing nothing, could possibly lead to being paralysed, muscle & tissue atrophy, and other bad bad things.

he finally gave me the right combo of pain meds to get me out of the crazy never ending loop of pain & no sleep..... and then we began the process of pain managment & then surgery.

once he seen the disks had in deed ruptured, and this is important to remember, when you have disk troubles in your neck and they go from bad to worse, 9 times out of 10 they rupture IN, not out towards your back as most would think... picture your self... and your neck, c5 & c6, when they go bad.. when they rupture, the go in towards your adams apple, not out towards your back of neck.. guess whats all up in there... your spinal cord................ your vocal cords, your airway, your muscles that hold your head up....

okay, now... when mine ruptured, and we have no idea when it happened, could have been years ago when the suicide headaches started.... but when they ruptured they were pressing on my spinal cord... making life all the more painful, not to mention basically no life because i was always in so much pain...

he told me he was going to need to do surgery.. no ifs ands or butts.... yes i was scared, and yes i heard horror stories, but I was grateful.... even looking forward to it... even tho i knew the risks, and knew how very close to the spinal cord he was gonna be, and how it could end my life, or paralyse me from the neck down... I was ready & i wanted it.. I wanted to finally not be in that pain anymore.

i had my surgery on january 12, 2006. they go in thru the front of your neck , have to move the vocal cord nerves & all kinds of good stuff out of the way to get to the disks..... usually a plastic surgeon makes the cut, then a vascular surgeon moves all the nerves & muscles out of the way, and then the neurosurgeon does the rest of the surgery.

once Dr.F got in there tho, he seen things were much worse than what showed in the xrays,mri's & ct's...... I had several bone spurs, that once the disks ruptured had taken bone spurs with it, and blew them right into my spinal cord. those bone spurs didn't show up on any of the diagnostic tests.. he didn't know what was there until he got in there... he then had to stop the surgery and get some more suregons in there to help him.. he knew he needed to get those bone spurs out of the spinal cord, but needed help to do it. told us after the fact that he was amazed that i was walking & talking when i came to see him the first time.. the bone spurs were literally hair lengths away from paralysing me.... he said had i been on a roller coaster, or even at the grocery store getting bumped just the right way, i could have ended up paralysed if they had moved even a little bit... i was very lucky...... somehow......

they got them all out, i believe there were 4 of them... but in taking them out, there were now some holes in the dura, the covering around the spinal cord..... he felt that they would seal up on there own.. much like when someone gets a spinal tap.... the little hole reseals, so your not leaking spinal fluid. so i have a small fusion at c5 & c6 and a metal plate.....5 screws and a bracet.

well............. due to improper nursing care after surgery.... I was sitting up and walking the next morning after surgery.. was to be laying flat on my back...... but i was feeling GREAT, and was determined to recover quickly and enjoy the no pain thing i hadnt had in 19+ years.....

things went bad very fast.... i was up at 8:00 am having a wonderfull McDonalds breakfast with my husband, and by noon I was very sick... very fast... and had spinal fluid POURING out of neck, the incision still had a small drainage tube under the dressing, but it wasn't keeping up with the volume of fluid that was pouring out of my brain... it was bad..... very bad.... and one of the worse headaches I cannot even describe...

Doc came right away, and flipppppped out on the nurses.... he made me get flat on my back, which in itself was painfull to begin with , which is why i was up sitting & moving around. he needed to seriously sedate me to keep me down & still because i just couldn't stay flat, or sane... the pain was horrible, terrible that doesn't even cover it..... i wanted to die, and begged them to kill me...

anyways, he felt that by being flat we could get the holes left in my spinal cord to seal naturally and for the next 3 or 4 days i think I was sedated in la la land and full of pain meds....

and Dr.F had his own nurses on the clock, taking care of me, and me only.. the nursing staff at the hospital were not to even step foot in my room, unless there was a life threating emergency.

i became more stable and he eventually took the drain out, and i was well on my way to going home...

i came home 6 days after my surgery, and began the recovery process here at home... basically in bed, but comfy, and recouping. or so we thought.. for 2 weeks i was weak and on heavy pain meds, but thought i was recouping.... but i had developed a very large lump on my neck... looked like a large goose egg, right under the incision...started out small, but got bigger and bigger.... and it was very had to swallow, feeling the pressure and feeling like there was something stuck in my throat.. off to the docs we went.. he said it was like a balloon... the spinal fluid that had been leaking, kind of formed a balloon off my spinal cord, the hole was still sealed, but it would take some time for the 'balloon' to go down... told me i needed to not be sitting upright from a laying position, said i needed to turn on my side and use my arms to crawl myself upright... ok.... so i made the balloon happen by using my neck muscles, and pressure from sitting up from a laying position... ok, back home to finish recouping... but he said if this didn't resolve soon, he'd have to do a procedure called a blood patch.... something about using whole blood injected into spinal cord to seal up the hole to stop the balloon effect... so home i go.... not wanting anymore messing around in , on or near my neck....

nope.. it was getting bigger and bigger and the headaches began again... i was leaking spinal fluid again. and got sick quick........ 3 weeks after my first surgery, they had to go back in again..... 3 weeks of recovering, only to have to do it all over again....

he wanted to go in, thru the same incision, and use medical glue , make sure these holes were sealed and no longer able to leak. so on February 6th i went in for another surgery.

it was just as risky as the first, same incision, same doc's same procedure, just not messing with the disks, which that part of the surgery was healing well and doing great...

my biggest complaint at this point was that i had spent 3 weeks recouping only to have to start over, and i was concerned about the incision on my neck.... the scar ya know... but anyways, he went in and sealed it all up with the glue, and the plastic surgeon made the incisions right over the old, so honest to gawd, you wouldn't know that it had been cut open 2 times, didn't look bad at all.. yes there is a scar, but its not so bad... I own it, and don't try to hide it... proud to be alive and walking... AND pain free... :0)

it was a horrible experience... but i have to say..... had we not had the spinal fluid leak......it wouldnt have been anything that would sway me to tell anyone NOT to have the surgery....

even with all i went thru, I still wouldn't tell anyone to NOT have it done....

you need to get it fixed.... the longer you wait, the better the chance for the bone-spurs... or disk ruptures......... I firmly believe if a surgeon tells you that you need to have surgery to fix your neck, it isn't a descion they make lightly... most surgeons just will not touch necks....

if your doc has told you that you need surgery to fix your neck , then you NEED surgery to fix your neck....... you do research, you ask questions, you learn all you can about the procedure, about the doctor, about the recovery, about everything... you get 2nd & 3rd opinions... but don't be alarmed when the 2nd and 3rd opinion comes up with a no surgery needed opinion, like i said, most docs wont touch necks......... if you've done the whole, Physical Therapy, pain management, injections, and or traction course of treatment and none have fixed you. Please consider the surgery....

Its not easy, its not fun, its not pleasent & its painfull............... But the end result is , Your Neck Is FIXED............ your neck will never be like it should... but it will be fixed, and there will be no more undue stress & damage done to the many nerves needed for everyday things like using your arms, and walking, and talking...................

If i had to do it all over again, even with my complications, you bet 100% I'd do it again...

yes I still have pain... but nothing compared to what I've lived with for 20 years... my quality of life is now, Im living my life..... Im not in pain & in bed and wanting to die to end the misery of the chronic pain, headaches, muscle spasms that i had lived with for so many many years...

I cannot tell you what to do or feel, just share my story with you, and hope that with all fears aside, you to want a better quality of life............ and to have the horrible pain & headaches to stop............ getting your neck fixed will give you that back.... will give you a life back....

again, Im sorry for such a long long long book ive written here, but like i said, Im very passionate about anyone with neck troubles, and needing help, concerns about treatment options, and wondering about people who have had surgery.

PS.

I never sustained a neck injury... ever.... they have NO idea how my disks got hurt and were buldging to begin with.... they have no idea what set off the events that led to me damm near being paralysed..... still stumps my doc to this very day he teases me and say's i must have spent a lot of time faling out of trees when i was little.

if you wanna talk more, Im here.... if you think im nuts and dont wanna here from me again, i understand... just wanted to tell you my story.....

best of luck to you~

Lilbit aka Linda