Second Surgeon Visit

[jsewell]

I saw my surgeon, i am now 4 weeks out of surgery. We discussed the possibility of fusing the lumbar area from the back again., We still have time to wait on that decision,. Apparently he said he would not do this operation on his wife, mother, sister etc. If their spine were in my shape. My bones are so weak when he did the surgery from the front the cages are subsiding into the vertebrae. so they are not holding the space open as they should have instead they are kind of just sinking into the vertabrae. He is afraid if he tries to go in to the back , as he did last year that the screws will cause more fractures every time he tries to use one, I currently have 4 good sized fractures in my lumbar spine. so i suggested spinal cement., He thought that was a good idea and when i see him in one month if i am still in this amount of pain , that is what we will do.
Do you think i should be concerned that i came up with the idea?

On to the drop foot, no improvement. I am open to any suggestions. It is too early to have an EMG, but again when i see him in one month it will be ok so we will schedule it then. He said it does come from the L5 area and last year when i had the EMG it showed problems in that nerve. It showed current inflammation as well as damage. I just hope this can be fixed. He said maybe it isn't even a never spine problem. Maybe a tendon.
Which i have been wondering,even when i was in the hospital. I had a call on the friday before surgery that i had a urinary tract infection. It was a rush to get meds into me as surgery was on monday morning so i was told that the prescription was called into my pharmacy. that was a joke in itself as my small town phramacy was closing in 15minutes and i live about 15 minutes away and then need to park and gimp to the store. so Rei from my doctors office called the pharmacist and i am a good customer so he agreed to wait for me. anyway the drug was cipro, one of the ones Maria had posted the warning about. so did it cause a tendon rupture without lots of pain? I did ask the primary doc that was following me in the hospital and he said he didn't think so because it would have been so painful. So i am on hold on the foot drop.

I am no longer on bed rest, i am not supposed to do much, and when i mentioned housework, he just didn't say much but to ask aboiut my kids and how they were doing, so i will do little bits and take many breaks. I am still spending a fair amount of time in bed. Yesterday i needed to go to the bank and the pharmacy and it did hurt so i am not going to stay out that long again. oh and target.
WEll sorry that was a book, that is what happens when you are in bed most of the day!!!!
judy

[Maria]

Hey Judy,
I had wondered about doing spine surgery on someone such as myself with moderate osteoporosis (that was at the last DEXA scan). I didn't think it would be a good idea for myself and since my 2nd spine surgery failure I have been extremely cautious with regard to the idea of more surgery. Then again if it's necessary then one must do what one must do.

I would wonder why your surgeon didn't think of the cement for fractures before you did. He sounds very reluctant to go back in and do more surgery on you esp. if he states what he did with regard to not wanting to do this type of surgery on his wife, mother or sister if they were in your shoes. I always ask that question to see what the surgeon says.

Anyway it's good that you're able to be up and about more though do be careful. I know when my Dad had his spinal fractures and he had only 2 I believe he was very limited in what he could do with regard to the pain. I felt so bad for him because as old as he was (87 then I believe) he'd never experienced pain like that before except when he had kidney stones and he was just miserable. The fractures did heal within about 2 months I think but he also didn't have any hardware in his back but he did have EXTREME DDD thru out his spine and severe osteoporosis.

Oh with regard to the tendon thing.. I had SUPER SEVERE pain with my posterior tibial tendons bilaterally at the same time! I could not put my feet on the ground even at first and crawled to the bathroom. I mean it was horrible for about 2-4 weeks the first episode. Now it's freaking chronic and I hate this stuff but I do not have footdrop. I had that starting before I had my L5S1 discectomy done.

Ok wishing you the best and hoping the foot drop will recover and the pain will subside as the fractures hopefully heal. If not the cement sounds like a good idea to me if there aren't some serious risks involved.

take care and good to hear from you~ Maria

[mmglobal]

Judy,

Regarding your fractures, I believe that kyphoplasty is commonly used to stabilize burst fractures that occur in older and osterporotic patients. It seems like a reasonable idea to use it in your case. I do NOT know what to think about the idea that you thought of it first. It seems a pretty benign question, "why didn't you suggest it first". I'll be interested to hear his reply.

Mark

[jsewell]

Yes, i have had kyphoplasty before in my thoracic spine by this surgeon. I think he is just overwhelmed by my case. He did tell me months ago that i have been his most difficult case.
These 4 weeks cannot go by fast enough. I want to kyphoplasty to feel better. I want the EMg to find out where the drop foot is coming from and get the darn think hopefully fixed. I am not a patient person when it comes to my health!!!
judy

[mmglobal]

Judy,

What was your experience with kyphoplasty? I've heard that it can yield immediate and complete relief. (obviously, it can only relieve the pain associated with the fracture that it stabilizes.)

Mark

[Maria]

I figured your surgeon might have just been rather overwhelmed to even suggest anything else re your spine. I hope if you're not healed by the next visit and you do get scheduled for kyphoplasty it will help and immediately.
How's it done, what's the experience like getting it?? Please describe.

really YOU impatient?? Who woulda thought?!