Hi, I had c5-6-7 fused 20 years ago and have had no problems until the last year. My neck is a disaster of collapsed and herniated discs, arthritis, stenosis, mild instability etc. My hometown neurosurgeon wanted to do a complete cervical fusion plus t1-3, soon as he saw MRI. Since I was having arm pain and have shoulder arthritis I came to Mayo’s Spine Center in Sept to be sure of the source of the pain. I have never had such a complete and thorough work up by several different specialties and am now working with pain specialist on diagnostic injections to further identify pain source. My neurosurgeon at Mayo could have easily justified surgery based on imaging alone, but has done several additional tests and been very conservative, and tried to avoid surgery if possible.

Jump to this post