Not for me. My daughter just told me that she’s going to need surgery to correct a problem. Apparently the 6th & 7th vertebrae have degenerated to the point to where the nerves are being crushed. She’s been having tingling and numbness in her extremities, and has been told that if she doesn’t have the surgery, she could lose the use of them.
She’s been told that “They will literally have to carve out a larger hole in my vertebrae to make room for my nerves to connect correctly.”
She has asked if I can come out to where she lives and stay with her while she recovers, if necessary.
My question is: What is the expected recovery time from this sort of surgery, and just how immobile will she be? Bed pan immobile, or just help to get to the bathroom?
Does anybody have experience with this sort of operation? Doctor Qadgop? Thanks for the help.
My wife had surgery for a herniated disc a while back. That involves working on the inside of the vertebrae to trim the fibrous disc. She was home in two days and generally able to move around on her own.
Your daughters surgery is not the same of course, but I’m imagining the time between surgery and mobility might be similar.
There are many, many more questions to ask here. The first one is what kind of surgery is planned? From your description, I’m guessing her problems are in the neck at C6-C7. The two main options for here are disk replacement, also called ADR, and fusion, aka ACDF. Another option that probably isn’t available to her is microdiskectomy, or MED. This one’s good for cleaning up small herniations of the spinal disks or bone spurs.
If she’s talking about carving holes in the vertebrae, that would be a foraminotomy, where the natural passageways that the nerves leave the spinal canal through are enlarged. This can be done as part of an ADR or a fusion.
I’ve had one or more of all three types of surgery…I managed to pick parents with really bad spines. One cervical and one lumbar MED, a cervical ADR and a two-level lumbar fusion. The MEDs and the ADR were all outpatient surgery with quick recoveries. The fusion recovery has been much longer. Three months out of work, and a healing process that’s typically expected to take 18 months.
If her insurance will cover it, look into disk replacement. Some carriers have no problem with ADR, and some still persist in calling it “investigational.” The implants allow full motion of the neck and it’s thought that preserving natural movement will also reduce wear on the neighboring segments.
One bit of universal advice - if she smokes, she needs to quit. Smoking has been found to really mess up bone healing to the point that some spine surgeons won’t eve touch you if you smoke.
Also, how many treatment opinions has she had, and is at least one of them from a neurosurgeon?
Good info. It sounds like the enlarging of the passageways to me. So far, she’s only seen her GP, I think. She has an appointment to see a specialist next month. I’ll suggest to her to ask about the ADR. Yes, she smokes, and I’ve been hounding her for a long time about it.
Since we’re talking about the 6th and 7th vertebrae, I’m guessing that we’re talking about the cervical spine (neck)?
As ‘gotpasswords’ mentioned, there are two types of surgery commonly performed for your daughter’s condition. Until about 10 years ago, there was only one- an ACDF (anterior cervical discectomy and fusion). I had a two-level ACDF when I was only 30 (back in 2005) and recovery before returning to light-duty work was supposed to be 4-6 weeks…I went back in 12 days!
At the time of my surgery, the FDA had approved disk replacement for the lumbar spine but not yet for the cervical spine. My mom had c-spine disk replacement in 2010 and her recovery wasn’t as quick as mine, but it was also less painful. The procedure is much less intrusive also.
For my ACDF, not only did they cut open my neck, but they also had to cut open my right hip to harvest bone material. (It was either that or use cadaver bone, which creeped me out and has a lower success rate). They put little cages between the vertebrae where the damaged disks had been removed and filled them with protein powder and my hip bone material. Then they put titanitum plates and screws over the three affected vertebrae (C4/5/6) and they grew into one big mass. My neck has been fine since then, but my right hip still hurts like an SOB sometimes!
One cervical and one lumbar MED, a cervical ADR and a two-level lumbar fusion. The MEDs and the ADR were all outpatient surgery with quick recoveries. The fusion recovery has been much longer. Three months out of work, and a healing process that’s typically expected to take 18 months.