Pain After Posterior Cervical Surgery

Hi Olcowhand & welcome to Healing Well. So sorry to read what you have been & are continuing to deal with. First off let me say this, a posterior fusion is a very hard surgery to fully recover from. It takes a lot of time to recover from this surgery. Sorry, I am quite sure this is not what you wanted to hear but I am just shooting it to you straight. To fully recover you are looking at anywhere from 18-24 months to completely recover & know what sort of residuals you will be left with & know what to expect. Eight months out from this surgery you probably are where you should be. Each person recovers differently. Time & patience has got to become your best friend. Trying to push through & do more than your body is physically capable of doing will only come back & bite you big time. Setbacks are even more difficult to recover from. This is where we see a lot of people mess up from having spine surgeries. We have several that has had your type of surgery & they will tell you the same thing.

You spoke about going to work in a couple of months. I urge you will find work that you are physically capable of doing without putting yourself at risk for either injury or creating more problems that what you already have. The days of haeavy hard physical work are over unless you want to risk causing further problems. It is so critical that you protect your neck against future injury as you are still in the healing process. As far as feeling like you are half the man because you can't go out & work & do all things you did at 21. Age alone has a way of sneaking in & putting us in our place whether we like it or not. Let me remind you, you have had a very serious traumatic spine surgery & lets be honest at 57 you are approaching the years when things start to slow down a little. Even if I did not have all the health issues that I do, at 62 there is no way I could do most of things I was doing in my 40's. Lighten up & don't be so hard on yourself, this is not something that you did to yourself intentionally. This could have been a lot worse for you.

The numbness you still have in your fingers most likely is from the nerves that were compromised before surgery. Nerves have to heal on their own & there is no time line on when they will heal either.

One thing we will tell you about pain medication is less is always better. However, letting yourself suffer needlessly because of your fear of addiction or that they will stop working, can affect your recovery & even prolong it. Granted if a person takes any medication long term they will build up a tolerance & run the risk of the medication no longer being effective. Addiction comes into play when a person misuses their medication & takes more than they are suppose to. There is a difference between addiction & tolerance issues. A half of a pain pill a day, you may as well take nothing because that is not enough to be effective at all.

If you will look in CP101 above there is some info in there all written by folks that have had neck surgery I think you may find something in there to help you out.

Take care.

Why no fusion when bone was removed and you have nerve damage? Apparently, someone thinks your cspine is stable enough otherwise? I would want to understand the rationale behind this. If you will require a fusion eventually why would you want to recover from 2 similar surgeries?

I agree with Susie, take the full pain pill. Consider seeing a pain management specialist as your PCP will be reluctant to continue to prescribe them.

The surgeon said my spine was stable and should do fine without fusion. If I had been fused, my range of motion would have been very limited as with 3 fusions in a row, 4 of my 7 cervical would have been fused as one. I do have good range of movement now, much better than before surgery.
I have always been able to deal well with pain, but it's never lasted so long is all. Getting a good night's sleep is the hardest thing to do. Constantly waking. At least severe charlie horses in my right leg have not happened in a month or so now, so maybe that's a good sign. They would hit me during the night and I'd sometimes literally fall onto the floor writhing in pain.
The driving job will be short hauls to refill fertilizer trucks and deliver spray materials to the fields, and maybe some on farm deliveries of other supplies such as feed. So I won't be confined inside a truck for long at a time. Driving more than 45 minutes can cause leg cramps that can get bad, and that's about as long as I'll have to drive at a time. The job begins in about 2 months, so I need to get a grip on the aching pain. Right now I can work here on my farm and rest whenever needed. It won't be that way when I start the job. 2 months may bring better days, at least I hope so. Surgeon said as far as nerve damage, by 18 months, I'll be as good as it will get. That's this coming November.
As to my rebuilding the piece of equipment, my wife got pretty upset with me for doing it, as it really pushed me way too far physically. But I was also suffering through the mental aspects which drove me to push myself....which of course was a bad thing, but hard to realize when your world has flipped upside down. I was also dealing with my 89 year old Dad's failing health at the same time, and had little help other than my wife and one of my sisters. He got through his bladder cancer and is 90 now and doing pretty decent. Mom is 90 as well. Lots of time taken to care for them all this time. My son who farmed with me also put me through tons of stress over the farm, but I have bought him out and his home and some land is about to be deeded over to him. Yes, I got mighty depressed at times. I am just now getting to the point that I feel like I can breathe for myself and not be pulling the world behind me. My wife has been simply amazing! We lost her mother this past March to a sudden blood clot to her lungs. Been one wild rollercoaster the last 2 years.

Thanks for your support! I will be checking in when I feel the need or post updates.

My intent is not to minimize your experience or critique your surgeon. I am not a medical professional and have no idea of your personal condition or circumstance.

Your recovery sounds like that of a fusion not a lammie.

A laminectomy is generally considered to be a pain management procedure and has a different set of recovery criteria. You should have expected to experience some pain relief, sounds like you didn't.
At this point in your recovery I would ask for another MRI & follow up consult were I you.

Hope this helps.

Take it as positive that you don't require fusion. PT is expensive, whatever you can do yourself is good, stretched are especially welcome I feel. This may help reduce your pain & strengthen your neck

Good luck.

I had a posterior cervical foraminotomy of C6-7 to remove two synovial cysts that were blocking 65% of the opening. Prior to surgery my neck and back pain was excruciating to the point of nausea. I am now 6 months post op and although I have a greater range of motion and although the pain level has improved there are still days that I go home from work early due to pain. Sleeping is still difficult and I suffer from chronic headaches. Prior to the surgery my last two fingers would tingle and feel like they were going to go to sleep every once in a great while but now it happens multiple times through the day and if I lay on my left side at night my elbow feels like I hit it on something. I went to physical therapy 6 weeks after the surgery for a few visits and continued to do the prescribed exercises but the exercises make it worse. I am on travel for work so I haven't been back for my 6 month check up. Do I have nerve damage? Does this just take forever to heal?