Cervical Degeneration

[Wayne]

It's been a while since I've visited this site and I'm feeling a bit guilty for my lack of involvement. I had a multiple ADR in 2004. It was very successful and I just went on with my life after a brief stent (no pun intended) here giving advice and communicating with various people.

I've recently been diagnosed with cervical disc degeneration which is causing me considerable pain at first and now it's just a nagging numbness in my left shoulder. I will be going in for consultation next month and I presume I'll know more then.

That said, I've been down this road before and wondered whether or not cervical disc replacement is done and if so how dangerous is it.

I searched on the site for a while but couldn't come up with any answers.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Warm regards,

Wayne

[jss]

Wayne,

Congratulations on your successful lumbar ADRs. Bummer about the new cervical problems though.

I've had cervical ADRs at C3/4 and C6/7 and am doing great. The surgeon has to push aside far fewer organs, vessels and arteries with a cervical procedure than a lumbar one. I've not seen any statistics on this, but from what I can tell there seems to be a higher success rate with cervical ADR than with lumbar. I do know that the recovery is much shorter and easier.

Good luck, Jeff

[annapurna]

Opinion only, cervical ADR is more touchy to do because you simply have less room for error but, if the surgeon does a good job, people seem to have better successes. If the ADR goes bad, you do have fewer options but I don't remember too many people complaining of severe problems with cervical ADR (potentially blame failing memory for that). Again, personal opinion, surgeon skill and experience is more important for cervical.