C3-4, C5-6, C6-7, T1-2 ProDisc-C Nova ADR blog

[fuzzy]

THANK you for your detailed post. Very interesting and I am glad you are doing so well. Sure seems like your setback is part of the recovery process but you seem to be taking the bull by the horns! So no wonder you have some pain levels. Do you think the pain levels (oxycontin!!) are (still) related to post surgery pain or your excess activity (the office!!). I have been doing some office the last few days and it is killer on me. Sitting can be real bad for a not so perfect spine.

I think you are doing TOO MUCH and should take it easy. Maybe visit me and sit on the porch in my electric antigrav chair for a few weeks (no cell phone or puters) ;-)

[runner]

Mark,

Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Please follow your advice to us and take it easy.

Runner

[sahuaro]

Mark:
Unless a whack with a 2 x 4 will correct the tilt, I wouldn't advise it.
As everyone else has said, please let yourself heal and listen to your body!
Thank you for posting!

[steve55]

Wow, so mark, you also had hip pain pre op? Yea, as you recall in my profile, and in my records, I also had bouts of hip pain which seemed to time with my flare ups , along with my other really weird below the waste symptoms,.... too embarrasing to go into details here. All that below the waste and hip pain garbage is all gone for me too since my 3 level cervical adr surgury. Oddly enough, it's weird how you and many patients report having voice box issues while some like me had not even the slightest noticeable issues despite a 6.5 hour sugery.

I also had a setback at 5 or 6 weeks post op. I had felt good enough to go clothes shopping all day and ran a bunch of errands and boy did i pay the price. Stayed in bed for 2 days after that. Only now 3 weeks later do I feel I got back to where I was before overdoing myself that Saturday.

It wasnt till 5 weeks post op that i could finally sit at my desk at work for a steady 5-6 hours, with the help of alleve and an ultracet of course.. Well, I'm now 9 weeks post op and still dealing with all kinds of aches and pains (both at the disc levels and other muscular parts of my back) but they arnt too bad really , and with alleve I can pretty much have more good days than bad, but certainly not anywhere near pain free yet. For me, the good news is that none of the current pain is the old preop pain. There's no hell on earth like nerve pain and I'll take this physical mechanical pain over deep nerve pain anyday!! Just thought I'd share my own experience since we had similar surgery only a month apart.

[ans]

Mark: Are you nuts? You admit that you had major surgery. Take horse tranquilizers, etc. to slow your pace, OK? Best, Allan

[New-disc]

Mark,

Be good to yourself..... Take it SLOW!!

Todd

[Justin]

Hey Mark,

I hope you feel better. It does sound like you are doing WAY too much too soon. You only get one chance to heal correctly. Good luck!

[Kathy]

Mark,
Wow, you have alot going on, make my head spin. I had no idea that you had so much pain and so many issues prior to surgery. I had thought this had just been an off an on thing, that had just gotten worse a few months ago. After reading your post, I'm feeling like a sissy, just back pain pre-surgery and muscle pain now.

Just curious, how could your head be crooked? I don't understand how that is even possible Aren't your vertebrae flat (basically) and during surgery they shave (chisel) off any abnormalties to make them flat and make the implant fit correctly? The implant is designed to move and flex in different directions; but is implanted flatly between the two vertebrae... So, how would it be tilted that would make your head crooked? I remember reading someone ask something about one of your first x-rays; but all that x-ray reading and lingo is above my head. Is this what they were asking about? I have never heard of this happening, is this common? Or just a freak accident? (Can you tell I was the kid in the classroom with my hand up all the time with a question? I just have to understand things, how they work)

Take it easy, sounds like you are doing way too much too early. Remember the pain medication can be a good and bad thing, good because you don't hurt and feel good, bad because you don't feel if you are overdoing it. You still got a lot going on with your spine and need to give it a chance to heal, like one of the earlier posters said, you only get one shot at healing. Take Care, Kathy

[treefrog]

Mark, I hope you have started taking some of your own advice, and are taking things a little easier. Yep, you only have one shot at healing correctly. You don't want to blow it. Take it slow, and easy.