[JinSong]

I really hope that everyone on this thread is able to get some relief--sending good thoughts out there. Kris especially, I hope that you're getting access to resources for immediate help! That must be so terrifying, and I hope you have some supportive friends and family to assist you while you get through this crisis. It seems like people on here have plenty of recommendations for good surgeons, but I thought I'd also toss out there that Barrow Brain and Spine in Phoenix, Arizona will do a remote consult from anywhere in the world using your MRI scans and medical history. I found the extra information to be helpful and easy to get.

As to the initial question, I've asked that of the surgeons I've talked to, and, like everything else, they seem to have slightly different opinions. One guy I talked to said that he's seen even very severe nerve or spinal cord damage improve (he was the least antsy to get me into surgery, naturally. He also didn't do ADRs, as it turns out, and that he wouldn't do a fusion on me until I couldn't walk normally--my disc issues are cervical so right now everything's in my arm/hands). Another surgeon was very casual about it and said that I was certainly risking progressive or permanent damage the longer I waited, but that it was more my choice how quickly I wanted to address it surgically. The third one did the most thorough neuro exam and was extremely concerned about the spinal cord symptoms--weakness/clumsiness, and told me that already it might never recover and surgery would just be to prevent further damage.

That last surgeon also said that the different symptoms tend to have different recovery rates/probabilities. He said that nerve pain usually resolves first, followed by numbness and tingling, and then the weakness and clumsiness from the spinal cord damage was the slowest and least likely to recover fully.

So I guess the answer is contingent on a few things--what various surgeons have recommended to you, what types of symptoms you have, and personal preference. Some people want to avoid surgery at any cost, while others just want to fix the structural anomalies quickly. Both are risks, just different types of risks. Personally, I'm definitely scared of surgery, but I'm in the camp of preferring to gamble on surgery rather than playing the waiting game. Any potentially permanent nerve or spinal cord damage is just too big of a risk for me not to actively address, and the associated nerve pain is driving me bonkers--better to lop out a disc than lop off my arm!