[Spinal Fusion / Cervical] Discectomy and spinal fusion C4-C7

[Margo]

Hi, all!
On one hand it's nice to know I'm not alone, but on the other hand I'm sorry we had to meet this way.

My spine problems are degenerative (rather than from an accident or the like). I'm a 50 year old female, but until all these health problems beginning 2007 I was pretty energetic and a lot of people thought I was much younger than I am. Here's my brief spinal health history:

2007 thoracic stenosis probably triggered my fibromyalgia. Fall 2007 I had a cardiac ablation for supraventricular tachycardia (uncontrolled rapid heart beats). Fall 2008 doctors finally decided that the stenosis found in summer 2007 MRI was responsible for many of my complaints. It actually wasn't till early fall 2008 that I began having serious back pain, but I was having other neurological symptoms way before that.

11/08: diskectomy T11-T12 and fusion with screws T11-L1

2010 late summer I had a sudden and mysterious horrendous rash on my neck and a swollen face too. About 3 weeks later my face started "feeling funny". Shortly after that the pain in my neck started and escalated very rapidly. Summer 2010 I was found to have asthma and my digestive system began giving me troubles. I went through tons of testing for those things, but now it seems that it was the cervical stenosis that was largely to blame. It feels like just about my whole central nervous system was affected by the stenosis.

1/11: diskectomy and fusion C4-7.

I just had the last surgery a month ago, so I'm still healing from it. The neurosugeon said that he wasn't sure the head symptoms would be resolved (whether there was permananent nerve damage). Right now I'm trying to minimize the facial/head symptoms by rest, but these efforts are only somewhat helpful. I have a feeling a steroid would help, but I have to wait till the bone has healed enough to try that.

I still have some weakness in my hands/arms and legs, but this is much improved after the surgery. I have a lot of tingling, some pain and even occasionally poor control of my jaw - especially when talking for any length of time. The tingling makes me tired; I've had tingling in the face before from fibromyalgia and I always found that tingling in the head made me tired.

I'm on SSDI, but I'd still like to try to work at least part-time. We'll see...

That's my spinal health story.

[JK2234]

How are you?

[Margo]

Thanks for your concern... and sorry for the delayed response. My cervical issue is healing well and I just learned that the ENT doctor interpreted my recent swallowing study results as indicating only temporary problems on that front from the neuro-surgeon having to cut through muscles to operate on me, and that my swallowing should return to normal as those muscles heal...

Unfortunately, however, it appears that I'm already forming my third stenosis, this time in my mid-back. I've had to increase the Tramadol again and am also having numbness in my feet and some trouble walking (not too bad yet, though). So I may be in for another surgery before long.