[joewtny]

Widespread pain/discomfort symptoms hard to describe! For neck, mostly on right C5, but often forms a cross from bottom of skull down to about T4 and across shoulders, especially leaning forward. Pain in feet growing (started on outer toes), massive pain in hands spreading to elbows, kept in check with 450mg/day Lyrica + Dilaudid (some alcohol actually helps too!)

Va. Spine Inst. neuro said ACDF could help with all of it & wanted $32k total to do it. Va. Hospital neuro said strength/balance/sensitivity normal but might help neck and shoulders, offered ACDF for free but Va. Hospital would charge $20k. Went with Kaiser under Obamacare & their ortho said try nerve block. That greatly helped neck/shoulders for 2-3 days so then had RF Ablation. Local helped again, but RFA did zip!

So given normal strength/balance/sensitivity, and RFA failure, can discs & "severe" osteophytes cause all this, and be relieved with ACDF? They now want to send me to "chronic pain management" and "cognitive behavioral therapy" while I slowly deteriorate. Went from spry 50 yr old to feeling like 95, unable to exercise. Feels like giant vise slowly closing on back of neck. But now getting numbness in outer 2 fingers each hand in AM. So, sound like ADR/ACDF candidate to you, or just learn to live with the "arthritis"? I'm certain at some point down the road, this pain will become unbearable!