@mrmacabre Thanks for sharing. Glad to hear your fusions have been successful. Yes, they did use bone grafts when removing discs in my first two fusions. When the surgeon did my second fusion (C3-C4) he said it was very difficult to get the screws in because the bones were very unhealthy. The way he put it was the bone was “soft”.

Going into this most recent fusion of C2-C5 the surgeon and I agreed that if the bone at C5 was not healthy enough to provide the necessary support he would go to C7 (C6 not an option because of how narrow things are at C6-7 already) or worst case scenario down to T1 or T2. This time of surgeon put screws all the way through the bone out the other side to give them the best chance of staying in place.

As to the unhealthy , I was diagnosed with osteopenia at a young age, I think it was when I was 19. It progressed over time and they had to start treating it with Fosamax about five years later. Although I have not reached osteoporosis point yet, I’m getting closer and closer with each biannual bone density test. I’m actually overdue for that test right now, so those results should be interesting.

Thanks again for your reply. It feels good to talk about this things with people who have been there.