I am a 3 level cervical fusion patient w/?'s

[cherylstewart67]

Surgeries:
Stand alone PEEK cage at c3/4
donor bone fusion at c4/5/6 with plate and screws

Current Conditions:
min. buldge at left c2/3 nerve root encroachment *causing occipital nerve pain
min. buldge at c6/7/t1 *causing loss of finger control, spasms, muscle loss
spinal cord not affected, yet
Right side facet joint arthrosis at c2/3 - c6/7

Question:
what do I do now?
Please keep in mind that I will not allow a surgeon to fuse me again!
Is my future over?
__________________
44 yr old female 5ft"6 149 lbs non-smoker
hyperflexion injury to neck in young 20"s
slight scoliosis in thorasic
pt and chiropratic, muscle relaxers and anti-inflamatories for years
c-spine facet injections c3-7 (12/2010)
rhizotomy c 6/7 (1/13/2011) failed

[annapurna]

You might be able to get ADRs on either end to more or less stabilize and decrease the load on your facets but it's going to take one of the top spine docs to do this; pretty much requiring a trip to a non-US doc. As you're already showing facet arthritis you're also going to have to get moving quickly to get information to those surgeons. You don't want to be rushed in your decision making, so you're going to need to accept rush in getting the information to the docs and from the docs to you so you can make your decision. As a non-exclusive list, the names that jump to mind to look at are Zeegers, Bertagnoli, Pimenta, Clavel, and Boeree. Others are welcome to delete or add but those are the ones I'd start looking at.

[Harrison]

Cheryl,

Have you had any luck reaching out to members here with scoliosis? Or contacting the SRS?

Scoliosis Research Society (SRS)

They've done some REALLY good research. Here's a good FAQ from them:

http://www.srs.org/patient_and_family/scoliosis/

And, though your thoracic scoli is slight:

http://www.srs.org/patient_and_famil..._scoliosis.htm

Do you have a "systemic" diagnosis? Or any that one makes sense to you?

[cherylstewart67]

my scolio is on the bottom of my list of concerns at this time. if i could just get even 25% improvement on my neck i could get a slightly better life. i have seen facet joint replacement that could help...i have read that with my type of facet and stage i am at that adr is an option and yes that i would have to go out of us to get it. thank you for listing some doctors here. i would most likely go to barcelona or germany, brazil and south america is not appealing cost wise. i lived in germany over 10 years aog before all of this came on...

[Harrison]

Cheryl, I understand your priority to fix the pain generator. And I understand that it's your cervical spine that needs fixing. My concern is that scoliosis, whether minor or serious, puts you in a higher risk category. Liz’s story comes to mind for several reasons:

L4-L5 Prodisc ADR removed and revised to XLIF and PLIF
http://www.adrsupport.org/forums/f47...if-plif-10353/

I agree with AnnaPurna that many of the top docs are OUS, but there are dozens of US spine docs that focus on corrective surgeries, that include ADR and other stabilization technologies. I posted the list of docs somewhere, I can dig it up later if interested (or it should be searchable).

Hope this helps a little. Sorry for your pain!

[annapurna]

I don't believe there are facet joint replacements for the c-spine yet; or if they are, they're still pretty new and have all of the risks associated with new, unproven technology.

[Mike59]

Hi Cheryl,
I understand completely your statement that you would not allow a surgeon to do another fusion proceedure on you. I have had prior fusions at two levels, and I said the same thing when I needed more surgery. Annapurna has given you five excellent surgeon names, and I would contact a couple of them. One word of advice: If you have trouble sending your studies over the internet (as I did), you can simply mail them your studies (on CDs) via the US Post Office. I found they will get to England and Germany in about 3 or 4 working days.
You need to see some light at the end of the tunnel, and you are on the right course. We're thinking of you, and hope you have the best of luck finding a solution.

[annapurna]

I'll add a few things we've worked out.

You can mail by Global Express from USPS. It's expensive as anything but permits you to track the shipment to delivery in the foreign country rather than just to Customs there. It's a lot less important now but, in the past when the offices were learning how to deal with foreign patients, mail from us was occasionally lost.

In the past, some docs, Zeegers in particular, had problems reading Digicomm files from US MRIs. LaidUpDoc and others have said that it isn't a problem for them now but, should it be necessary, feel free to PM us and I can explain what we did to change the images to jpegs.

[cherylstewart67]

I know that my scolio is an additional concern. But it is not just pain that is my priority. My largest concern is the disfunction in my hands from the c6/7. I have lost some muscle tone in my hands and I have my middle finger to my thumb on both hands spasming. I get a shocking pain into my left wrist. i work on a computer and have concern about my being a productive partner for my husband. The occipital nerve pain from the c2/3 only concerns me if that disc should start to press more into the thecal sac onto the cord. I have multi issues really, I even have siatic pain in my lower back. But even the best doctor can only address one thing at a time. They alwasy ask me what bothers me the most and it's the possible loss in my hands.

[cherylstewart67]

Originally Posted by annapurna

You might be able to get ADRs on either end to more or less stabilize and decrease the load on your facets but it's going to take one of the top spine docs to do this; pretty much requiring a trip to a non-US doc. As you're already showing facet arthritis you're also going to have to get moving quickly to get information to those surgeons. You don't want to be rushed in your decision making, so you're going to need to accept rush in getting the information to the docs and from the docs to you so you can make your decision. As a non-exclusive list, the names that jump to mind to look at are Zeegers, Bertagnoli, Pimenta, Clavel, and Boeree. Others are welcome to delete or add but those are the ones I'd start looking at.

Are they all in Germany; somewhere in Europe?