Posterior Cervical Fusion for Osteoma Recovery time and pain

Hi all, just seeking some help and advice. After 20 yrs of misdiagnosis and increasing neck pain to where I was finally pretty much housebound and bedridden, and having been thru sooo many docs who told me in a nutshell that I was a drug seeker, or the pain all in my head, or that it wasn't really my neck that hurt, I finally found a wonderful spine doc who didn't give up on me. He discovered that I had what is basically a benign bone cancer tumor that was compressing my blood vessels and that was causing my ever increasing and immense pain. I am almost four weeks out of posterior C4 C5 fusion and removal of the bone where the osteoma was. I never hàd to wear a collar. My original neck pain is gone pretty much completely however the post surgical pain is awful and my neck very weak. I just need someone to talk to who can relate and give me hope that I will recover from the post surgical pain and how long to expect. I have been taking it very easy and still the pain is awful. I feel like I shouldn't need all these pain meds after a month and holy moly do I still need them. I know they did a lot of work in there, fusing both sides facet joints as well as removing the osteoma. What has been recovery times for you all and what should I expect as weeks go on? Tips for me, anyone? I am kind of going nuts at slow seeming recovery. I am a horse gàl and have been unable to ride for months, and I swear riding is my mental health salvation lol. Thank you anyone for input and help!

Hi CBD girl and Welcome to Healingwell Chronic Pain Forum. I've had two anterior cervical disc fusions C6/7 & C5/6 they were easy compared to the C3/4 posterior fusion of the facet joints along with rods and pins I had in Nov 2010. That was a very very painful surgery and took a very long time before the neck pain went away! I'm glad I had it done but the healing process was slow it took many many months after the surgery before I started feeling any where close to being normal! So please be patient and gentle with yourself you've had a major surgery and it will take time! The neurosurgeon who did mine said this posterior type of surgery is allot more painful for the patient and takes allot longer to recover from than the anterior cervical fusion!

Your not alone in this, there are quite a few of us on this forum who have had multiple fusions done on our cervical spine. so we understand what your going through! So you have definitely come to the right place for support! When your here on this forum your part of our Chronic pain family and we all try to help and support each other! This is also a great place to come and vent your frustrations about your condition, as you will most always find a compassionate ear ready to listen and help you in any way they can!

Good luck to you! I wish you well! and again Welcome to the forum!

White Beard

Thank you all! Yes, my doc said I could ride again in six to eight weeks and right now I will be happy to just feel like doing ANYTHING by then! I wish they didn't make it so hard to get pain med refills too, they give me enough for ten days, then it's a week to get a refill so I am always left with several days of no pain meds between which just sets me back.

My doc is in another town two hours away and now of course they have to mail hard copies of scrips instead of just being able to call them in. It is very frustrating. I know when I heal I will have a new lease on life. And I most definitely do not want to do anything to mess that up. It does seem like the docs, from other things I have read on here, give totally unrealistic expectations of recovery time.

Right now I live in fear of them saying,"it's been four weeks, you shouldn't need pain meds any more". Don't get me wrong, I cannot wait to no longer have to take them. Why they are only giving me 5 days of muscle relaxers and 10 days of pain meds at a time confuses me, so I cannot take the muscle relaxers as I need since I have to stretch them out, as my time between calling for refills and actually getting them is so long.

I am thankful for your replies so I have a better idea of what is realistic! My neck still hurts to even touch let alone do anything else. I'm pretty proud of myself right now to finally be able to sit upright for a few hours at a time before laying down for awhile for what I call my "neck breaks", cuz boy howdy does it let me know when it is tired!

I have had soooo much pain for so long that I am just eager to have some quality of life again. From age 20 to now 42 I have had nothing but pain, and I thank God my husband is a saint who has stuck it out with me thru all this, even though all my medical bills from all these years have kept us living paycheck to paycheck in good times.

I've had to leave so many jobs I loved over the years due to the pain making me so sick. Your kind replies have helped lift my spirits today and I thank you! People who have never experienced this kind of thing have no clue, after all, we look fine on the outside so must just be lazy, attention seeking, or making it up. As if we would want to spend hundreds of thousands on doctors for fun! It does really frustrate me that I can't contribute to our finances and have only managed to continually drain them all these years just trying to get help. It is wonderful of you to support me this way, and now I don't feel so alone. Thank you!





I have made some paragraphs in your post to make it easier to read. Some of our members have tracking problems when reading. Thanks.

Post Edited By Moderator (straydog) : 4/28/2016 7:00:41 PM (GMT-6)

I cannot believe your surgeon hanging you out to dry the way he is, thats just incredible, good grief. And to limit your muscle relaxer like he is, is he crazy or what? There really is no excuse for this dr doing this to a patient, absolutely none at all. Omg, he actually said you could get on a horse in 6-8 weeks, are you serious? Wouldn't you love to see some of these surgeons go back to normal right after surgery like they think a patient should. All I can say to that comment is this, I do hope you are much smarter than your dr. I can assure you, that as long your fusion is not solid (completely healed) which takes a good year or longer, the last thing you need to be on is a horse or to mess that fusion up before its healed.

If you will heed all the warnings we are giving you here you should do fine but its going to be a long road. There are no short cuts, short cuts lead to disaster.

Keep us posted & think fusion!!

Do you have a primary care dr? If so, do yourself a favor, make an appt & go in & tell the dr how you are being yanked around on your muscle relaxers by this clown. Giving you a muscle relaxer is no big deal & in reality that very well could be a medication you will need for a long time. Posterior surgeries causes lots of spasms.

If you will use our search feature above & tyoe in Abilene & TallerNow, these are two ladies that has had cervical fusions. They both documented their surgeries & their recovery. I really think you should do some reading of their info it will really give you some good insight as to what you will be dealing with. I know both of these ladies used ice packs for a long time. Have you had a chance to look at CP101 tips on cervical fusions, there is lots of good info there too.

Thanks again you guys! Yes, I am puzzled by the muscle relaxer thing too. When I broke my ribs the docs there sent me home with tons of meds and huge bottles of muscle relaxers. I love my surgeon, but am puzzled by the "hanging out to dry" on the meds.

It's not like I didn't just have major surgery or anything! And it's not like I take any other meds that would cause a problem. I get monitoring pain med intake but this seems ridiculous to me. He knows I am not a drug seeking abuser. You would think they could write me dated scrips to refill so I don't have to call and call and essentially beg for refills.

I will only be four weeks out tomorrow. I keep having to end up making the 5 hr round trip to go physically pick up my scrips when they call me 4 days after I run completely out to tell me they are just now putting them in the mail, which because we only get mail here three days a week, makes it almost always yet another five days before I actually receive the refill scrip. Anyone else ever had this issue?

I don't really have a GP, all the ones I have gone to since !moving here basically refuse to write pain scrips. I swear every time I have gone to a doc when I am so sick with pain I am throwing up, the first thing they say when they walk in the room and see that I am there for pain issues, is "we won't give you any drugs". Huh? I had to quit three jobs because I would get so sick with pain and the docs would not help.

When I lived in Iowa, and it was there I broke my ribs a few months ago, they just handed me scrips with a months worth of stuff at least. Home here in WY, after major surgery, getting pain meds is worse than pulling teeth! I could understand if I had a history of abusing them or something, but I never have or would. It's making my recovery hard.

I had to make that drive two weeks after surgery, five days after calling in for a refill, and having had no pain meds for over three days, not even two weeks out! I was one mess of pain I tell ya. Then having to basically suffer sudden withdrawal on top of the pain just trying to get a refill set me way back, especially after that long car ride. Took me three days to get out of bed again. Right now I am in the exact same spot AGAIN. I really don't understand it.

He did move to a different office, so his nursing staff is new. He did my first fusion last August and his nurses there always got my scrips out by the next day at the latest so it wasn't quite as bad. Now I am stuck on a cycle of 5 days of muscle relaxer, and ten days of pain med scrips at a time, with several days of being completely out of both before I receive my refill scrips, and have a feeling I will end up having to drive all the way down there again just to get my refill scrips or I will be out of everything for at least a week.

I take it from your responses that this is not a normal thing a post surgical patient should have to endure. I honestly have no idea what to do about it as there seems to be nothing I can do. A GP here won't help me out since they will assume I am just trying to get more drugs. Doesn't matter if I have my bottles with me to prove dates etc, been there, tried that. Needless to say it just adds a ton of extra stress on my body and making my recovery very difficult, and frankly pissing me off! Sorry for the rant on that, I just SOOOO don't get it.

My summer business I own is guided trail rides and riding lessons but I have a feeling that won't happen this year, especially if they keep setting me back this way. I even told them last time that I had been completely out of meds for four days, after stretching my 10 day supply to almost two weeks. I swear the nurse was like, "well you've been out of surgery a couple weeks so I can see if we can refill it". Huh? That's why right now I am living in dread that the won't even refill the request I made yesterday. If I stretch my pain meds out again I can make them last if I only take three 7.5 mg of my oxycodone a day for next two days. With no muscle relaxers. Thanks for listening, I am just having a very hard time with all this!

And yes, believe me, White Beard, I thank God every day for my husband! If I was him I would have left me a long time ago!! I told him how my dr. Appts here went and he had a hard time believing it, so I had him go to a few with me. He could NOT believe how they treated me. I was just trying to get help so I could KEEP working and was treated like a drug seeking gutter addict. By multiple doctors. It's been a very, very long road.





I have made some paragraphs to make your post easier to read. Some of us having tracking problems when reading. Thanks.

Post Edited By Moderator (straydog) : 4/29/2016 7:52:00 AM (GMT-6)

Thank you Susie. I'm just so frustrated. I've been left to hang dry again for this entire weekend at the very least since once again they are taking their sweet time. And then, if they manage to mail them at all on Monday or Tuesday I will be out for over a week. They know very well I live over two hours away. And I have explained to them about how long it takes me to get them by mail with out three day a week service. I guess it's no skin off their back how their patients suffer in the meantime! I have, put of desperation, found an herb that at least helps some with the pain and withdrawals between my refills which at least keeps me from losing my mind completely! And essential oils.
One day at a time is the best any of us can do. If it ever stops raining I plan to start a walking regimine to try and get my stremgh back up. At least I am very very blessed that the surgery totally eliminated the original pain I had for so long. I encourage anyone who has had surgeries that did not help (I had an anterior fusion last August that did not,) to ask their doctors to do a dye bone scan to check for the osteomas. I got very, very lucky that my doc did that scan, and the way my joint showed up literally blazing like a supernova, thougt something was funky with that and went the extra mile to figure it out. They are not terribly common but the pain is like if you really had a malignant bone cancer tumor. Mine was compressing blood vessels. It's a miracle I found a doc finally who did not give up on me. I literally would not have survived another year of that pain, and osteomas only get more painful as time goes on. My left eye had been at half mast after the horse accident a month before this surgery and is now back to normal. Osteomas can really, really mess with you and the pain is unbearable. I hope this info and post can help at least one other person. Insist on a dye bone scan and mention osteomas if you are experiencing like this. It literally saved my life. All my other docs just kept throwing antidepressants at me and telling me I had fibromyalgia. The antidepressants made me very ill and landed me in the ER three times due to bad reactions to them. They insisted my neck pain was "all in my head". For twenty plus years. I wish I could sue a couple of the worst just to keep them from doing the same to so many others. The series of convoluted events that led me to this doc were God's doing. There is simply no other way to explain it.

Uggh, sick to stomach today and really hurting thanks to the huge refill delay again! What are your thoughts on heat vs. ice for this stuff? When I sleep I wake up so stiff I get the head zaps etc, especially with no muscle relaxers. I am just beyond frustrated!! Just want to curl up and bawl today aargh!!

I am supposed to see him Wed., but after no pain meds for that long and getting sick from that again, I don't know how I can make the 2.5 hr drive there even if someone can drive me. He has me on 5mg of Valium, and if he's so worried about that that he only gives me 5 days at a time, I don't get why he just doesn't prescribe something like Robaxin etc. It takes longer to get a refill than to use the meds! If I have to call to reschedule the appointment I am definitely letting them know exactly why I cannot make it, and how vomiting certainly does not help my neck heal. It's just will be a month since surgery on Wed. when I see him and so far I have already have had to go through this scenario twice! It is exhausting, painful and extremely stressful. Sorry to "whine" about this but I totally am baffled and don't understand it. Until the last year I have always held very good jobs, and been a productive member of society lol. This b.s. is slowing my recovery and I HAVE to be able to get back to work again sometime in the near future. The way this is going, it's not gonna happen any time soon.

I haven't been on here as I just went through the worst five days of withdrawal ever. My husband drove all the way down on Wednesday to finally pick up my refills. I was so so so sick and in so much pain I almost went to the ER here in town but figured they would just think I was after drugs for kicks. I called today and got his nurse who is going to try and get this straightened out for me, as my four day valium refill is out this weekend already. And I said I wanted a refill of my pain meds as again they are only for ten days and that's how long it's been taking me to get refills. Both times to get my refills we have had to drive the 2.5 hours to his office, otherwise I would have had to wait another 5 days to get them in the mail, as we only get mail out here three days a week. I am finally feeling human again and if I don't have word that my refills are sent out Monday I am going to call and call and call. I cannot endure that again. That was the second time in my month since surgery that has happened. Sure makes recovery hard!
I am happy to say that I do quite well when I actually have my meds, just get very tired easily. I think my body is still trying to catch up from my four days of hell earlier this week. But since I will be out of muscle relaxers again tomorrow, who knows. She said she would call them in today but I have heard nothing. Sorry to go on about this, I really, really just want a chance to heal without all this added stress! Before I lose my mind completely!!! Hope you all are doing well and healing well! God bless!

Oh, I plan to. It's weird because he did my anterior last August and always gave me s month at a time. The nurse actually had to have a different doc give me these refills since my doc was always in surgery. Before this he has been phenomenal! He's the only one that stuck it out with me and finally found the problem and fixed it. I am kind of thinking it's the staff in his new office that is sub par and not getting my stuff to him. Which he needs to be made aware of. He was at his old office when he did my other surgery and my med refills were always filled the same or next day. I see him Wed. And we will be having a conversation!

My visit went well, got longer scrip for meds but no real explanation on the previous delays. Is it normal to still be tired all the time and not feel like doing much six weeks out? My doc told me I could start riding my horses again next week as long as I promise no Bronc's lol. How long does it normally take for the neck muscles to heal? I want to start walking and doing something other than sitting around all day reading. I am so tired of being tired!!! My big accomplishment for the week was getting on a sport bra all by myself lol.

CBD girl just the thought of getting on a horse only six weeks after your surgery makes me cringe! I gather from what you've written in your post that you are "chomping at the bit" so to speak at gettig back to riding! But it seems you know all to well the hazards involved in riding, so why push your luck? Your horses will always be there for you won't they? Give yourself. some time, enough time to heal and get stronger so you can be around a long time for your horses so you can ride them!

This is a very painful type of surgery and you've already had allot of trauma to your body and neck before your surgery! It kind of sounds like you need to let your body rest and recuperate a while longer before doing any thing that could possibly cause you more problems???

Anyway just my opinion, but I would suggest being really careful and gentle with with yourself until your stronger and healed up more!

I do wish YOU well!

White Beard

No mention of physical therapy. I didn't have to wear a collar at all since they not only removed the osteoma but also fused my facet joints on both sides of my C4 and 5. That is also where they removed the osteoma that had made my left facet over twice as big as it should be. The osteomas are excruciatingly painful and not common, I even searched this site for other patients with osteomas and came up with zip other than my post. I do, however see a lot of people still in awful pain like I was after my first fusion and encourage people to mention osteomas to their docs.
Since they are not common, I don't believe most docs know what to look for. It causes excruciating pain that just worsens over time. It takes a BONE dye scan, not an MRI or dye CT scan, but specifically a bone dye scan. I don't know how to get the word to all these people on here still suffering tremendous neck pain after fusions to have their docs check for it. They can occur anywhere on your spine. I firmly believe after reading up on them that many, many people are likely suffering from them. Mine was compressing blood vessels in my neck.
Thank you all for the input and for letting me know I am not crazy in my thoughts on my progress. I love you guys for taking the time to help and support a total stranger! My name is Holly and I again thank you tons. My horses are my mental health therapy and in the summers I do guided trail rides and riding lessons. I don't know if I will be able to this summer as lifting multiple saddles, hauling horses and hours of riding etc right now seems like a long stretch of my imagination. Just the thought of it right now is exhausting, lol!!