I am considering spinal fusion for a problem I have. It would be c5-c6 cervical fusion. I talked to my doctor about recovery etc and he states:
2 weeks minimum out of work.
6 weeks in a hard collar.
6 months till it heals and can do most regular activity.
1 year to heal completely.
Has anyone had such a surgery and had the same type of recovery times? Any anecdotal stories about recovery from a anterior spinal fusion?
I know this is not a medical board and I am not asking for a medical opinion on my problem.
I think there are newer methods worth looking into.
I can’t recall exactly, but I think the key word was microsurgery.
Less recovery time and more natural movement.
No idea of costs or how available it is. microsurgery back - Google Search
My dad had some of his neck vertabrae fused, but that was 30 years or so ago. Best I can remember, your timeline looks about like what I remember him going through. He was exceptionally concerned going in and was very, very cautious in his recovery. He’s still doing fine today, always said where they took the bone from his hip was way more painful than his neck.
My son had a spinal fusion, but very different from yours. His was thoracic, anterior and posterior (at once) with a rib removal. He was more or less bed bound for two weeks, although they had him up and walking short distances after three days, and in physical therapy by the end of the week. After the first two weeks, he came home and spent most of the next two weeks fairly immobile, although he got up to go to the bathroom during the day and we’d help him walk to the couch or the chair for a change of position and scenery. He was on morphine for a couple of days, Vicodin for I think 2 weeks, and then ibuprofen/Tylenol. Plus, of course, stool softeners. Take the stool softeners! Narcotics bind you up like you wouldn’t believe, and you’ll be afraid to strain because of the pain.
It hurt like hell, I won’t lie. But after the initial recovery time, it wasn’t too bad. He was out of gym class for a year, which is hard on an 11 year old boy, but now he’s back in and can do anything his classmates can, with the exception of roller coasters and skydiving.
Here he is about a month after the surgery. A little pale (though he’s always pale) and his hike through the woods was slower than normal, but he climbed rocks with us and everything. Here are his scars, just after the last of the tapes came off. He’s very proud of them. Notice there were no sutures (well, only two on his side for his chest tube). He was superglued back together, and then adhesives placed over the scar on the outside. The scars are white now and not nearly so noticeable, two and a half years after the surgery.
And, once again, my heartfelt thanks to Shriners’ Children’s Hospital and to Shriners everywhere for making his care possible (read: free).
My fusion was similar to Whynot’s kids experience. I have all of my thorasic and lumbar fused and my recovery was very long and difficult. I do know several people who have had just 1 or 2 fused, though, and the recovery was not bad at all- very similar to what you posted your expected recovery will be.
Best of luck to you with it. I hope it works out OK.
Coworker had some neck vertebrae fused last year through an anterior approach. He had an uneventful recovery that followed their predictions and he seems fine now. I don’t recall details but your list sounds correct. Oh, and his arm’s not paralyzed anymore, so it turned out like they said.
Thanks for all the posts. I have looked into the micro surgery approach, but they seem “too good to be true” results. I haven’t discussed it with my doctor yet to see what he suggests.
I have thought about waiting for the disk replacement that is supposed to be approved in the next year or so but the pain I have is getting to the point that it is making life difficult.
I will be talking to my doctor in January and discussing next steps, which most likely will mean surgery. (Went for a month of physical therapy to see if it would help, second time, made it worse.) I will post the results as long as I can still type afterwards.
I assume you have cervical radiculopathy? If so, have you tried a course of epidural steroid injection (s) / nerve block(s)? Many symptomatic patients experience significant improvement from this treatment paradigm. If they don’t render you completely asymptomatic, they may at least buy you time until the new “disk replacement” procedure you mentioned is approved. Make sure you find the best qualified specialist to inject you, if you decide to go that route (i.e. anesthesiologist/pain specialist, et al.)
mchapman, I had my entire thoracic fused at 29. I don’t feel that my surgery was successful. The joints above and below the fusion now have a tremendous amount of stress and pressure to compensate for the resulting loss in motion. I have more lower back pain and neck pain than before-not less. Before the surgery I ran 10k’s several times per year. On my best days I can hike (slowly) 2 or 3 miles- but I haven’t been able to run since. On bad days I stay in bed curled up with an electric blanket. I suffer frequent injuries like slipped disks or cartilage tears from performing normal, everyday tasks. Last bad injury was two slipped disks that resulted from stepping in a low spot while walking on the golf course. I wish I had tried harder to find an alternative to surgery, or at least sought a second opinion.
I would choose surgery only as a last resort. Physical therapy and steroid injections didn’t help at all?
(36 year old female, tall, thin, in moderate physical condition. I have an aversion to narcotics- only OTC anti-inflammatories and a glass of wine on bad days. Physical therapy and steroid injections when I have injuries.)
I haven’t had steriod injections yet, only physical therapy. I have burning/tingling nerve pain in both forearms. If I push too much by driving or working too much it then causes my pinkies to become numb/tingle. If it was just numbness I would just deal with it, but the burning pain can get excruciating, a 7 on the 1-10 scale. I also get shoulder blade pain which my doctor thinks is from the same disk issue.
I have had two MRI’s in the past 4 years, the second showing much more disk bulging into the spinal canal. My doctor said let’s do physical therapy with cervical traction and see if it will help. This was my third/fourth time doing PT. It only aggravated the situation to the point that I had to rest a day after PT for the pain to minimize. I still do some of the stretching exercises to keep my neck limber.
My doctor said after PT we would discuss next steps. This is when I asked him about the surgical option. He quoted the recovery I stated above. He may suggest cortisone type shots and I will consider it. He is a neurosurgeon. I have gone to orthopedist in the past but feel that a neuro may be better for spinal surgery. (At least it makes me more comfortable.)
I did mention the research I have done into disk replacement. He said he would be happy to refer me to a colleague two states away that is doing trials. I looked into trials and you get a 50/50 shot of getting the disk replacement. I feel rather comfortable with my doctor and don’t want to go two states away to get a surgery done where I won’t be able to travel well afterwards.
I will consider all options. Thanks for the input. I will post to this message after I talk to my doctor in January.
A friend of mine was in such mortal pain that he went the UK to get multiple disc replacement and he is now a changed man. He’s free of pain and seems to have much improved freedom of movement. He says it’s the best decision he’s ever made and money well spent.
I had some pain in my right leg that a neurologist determined was emanating from the L4 -L5 area of my spine. (the needles in the leg test.) But nothing showed up on the MRI’s, so the neurosurgeon I went to said an operation could do more harm than good.
About once every 4 months I get a nerve block from a pain doctor at the hospital. That and 2 oxycodone a day keeps me pretty pain free. In fact it’s not unusual for me to go weeks without any pain medication at all. If I were you I’d try the nerve block before you let anyone cut on your back, there’s some real horror stories from these operations.
Narcotic analgesic medication, such as oxycodone, often offer little benefit when dealing with neuropathic type pain (e.g. nerve pain from radiculopathy). I suggest discussing the use of medications indicated for nerve pain with your specialist. Neurontin® and Lyrica® are two good candidates.
I’ve used both of them. Neither worked anywhere near as well as the oxycodone.
With the nerve block the pain really isn’t all that bad, so when I take the oxyco I only take 10mg a day.
I had a C4-C5 anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) in February of 2005.
I was in a stiff cervical collar for 6 weeks, and out of work for one month. It took most of a year for me to have the coordination to run again without weirdness in my feet. However, now I can do most normal activities and I have no pain (well, sometimes there’s pain if I overwork myself) and no numbness anywhere.
I had a scratchy throat for several months because of the intubation.
My surgery was an emergency because the herniated disc was compressing my cord so severely that a fall or jerked motion could have severed it, resulting in paralysis.
I had C2 and C3 fused in 1991, after I broke C2. I was in a hard collar for three months.
Remember that a fusion is basically a broken bone that has to heal, so it’s like any other bone except in a much more critical place.
Mine turned out fine, but a co-worker told me at the time that “there’s no medical problem that can’t be made worse with surgery.” I think that’s a good thing to keep in the back of your mind.
My mother had 3 cervical vertebrae fused in the late 1990’s.
Her symptoms were very similar to what the OP has described, though only in 1 arm. She ignored it for years, trying chiropracty, acupuncture, almost anything else.
I don’t remember her being in a hard cervical collar for any length of time. I think she used a soft one for sleeping. I don’t recall her being terribly out of commission for any long period of time, either. The problem is, she clearly pushed herself beyond her doctor’s recommendations. Picking up heavy boxes, moving furniture, etc. As a result, she hasn’t had nearly the success that she might have if she weren’t so damned stubborn. She’s more comfortable taking her sister’s prescribed pain medications than doctor’s advice. :rolleyes:
So I am one week recovered from the cervical fusion. I am still healing and learning to hate the collar you have to wear after the surgery. (5 more weeks of it) I get 10-15 blessed minutes out of the collar a day when I can shave/shower. I have to be very careful with moving my head during this time though.
The surgery was a success in that they removed the bulging disc and put in a piece of bone to take it’s place. I won’t know if the fusion was successfull until 5 more weeks pass.
I ended up in the staying in the hospital for 2 nights they most likely would have let me out the second day but I couldn’t eat due to nausea.
The pain I was having in my arms is still there, it is different now less pronounced in one arm than the other. I also have the added bonus of a numb spot on my chin which has to be from the incision, it was a front approach called anterior cervical fusion.
If anyone has any questions I will answer them.
BTW General Anesthia works well but man it made me nauseous for like two days.
