Complications Following Cervical ADR With Dr. Bertagnoli. Please Give Advice

[Brian Patterson]

Hello all. My wife is 1 day post op from a 3 level cervical adr of c 3/4, 4/5, 5/6 performed by Dr. Bertagnoli in Bogen, Germany. She still has a lot of pain at the base of her neck (where much of her pain was before the surgery). Her arm pain is gone, but she has developed another problem. For some reason she cannot lift her right arm above her head like she could before surgery, and also it has become very sore 1 day after surgery. We will talk to Dr Fenk-Mayer about it tomorrow but we are really freaked out about it. I mean is this normal after a cervical adr? Could this indicate nerve damage or a misplaced disc? Are these things that may go away with time? Thanks for listening and any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Brian Patterson

[Slackwater]

Unknown for a one (1) day recovery period for your wife.

There are a long list of issues that "might" come up getting out of surgery that are transient. Please put transient in context; it may/will be more than a few hours and/or days. Some symptoms resolve "spontaneously" in medical parlance when it is a month+ for the patient, in another abstract/article I read.

What diagnostic tests were done in follow-up?

[Toebin]

Brian,

As Slackwater has said, 1 day post op is way to early to know if this right arm problem will be lasting or a transient type pain due to either muscle or nerve manipulation during the surgery.

Certainly it's worth keeping a close eye on, but the inside working parts really do get irritated by having surgery and they all take time to calm down. Only after everything is settled down will you know for sure if there is a real issue.

Patience at this point is difficult I know but Ohh So needed..

[sahuaro]

Shoulder pain is common after cervical ADR, probably because of positioning during surgery. Hopefully, this is what your wife is experiencing.
Can you update us on how she is doing?