i have cervical spinal cord compression

@wjh67 Hello and welcome to Connect. I am a cervical spine surgery patient and had my surgery at Mayo Rochester. In diagnosing, they did an MRI and neurological testing. For follow ups to check fusion progress, a few X-rays were taken periodically. Bring any prior imaging you have that is current because they can use it instead of taking new imaging. There will likely be some radiation during spine surgery from fluoroscopy imaging which is how the surgeon can confirm what level they are working on. I think the greatest radiation exposure is a CT because that is a series of multiple X-rays stacked together to make a 3 dimensional image. All of it is probably much less radiation than taking an airline flight as I've been told. It's a question to ask at an appointment.

Are you going to Mayo for a spine appointment?

Hi Jennifer. Yes, I am waiting to hear back from Mayo regarding setting an appointment. I have lumbar and cervical issues that need to be dealt with. My primary doctor (in Seattle) wants me to have a CT Myelogram but I don't want the radiation due to all of the previous testing I have had performed. Are there any good discussions on connect regarding the topics of lumbar and cervical stenosis? My doctor here (in Seattle) wants to perform a laminotomy on my neck and a decompression and coflex implant in my lumbar spine. If I do need surgery I will have it done at Mayo in AZ.
Thanks.

That's the reason I had to give up doing hair after 30 years. If I had too many perms or haircuts, my shoulders would get numb across the top because of the pinched nerve. It would hurt and be numb at the same time which is hard to explain that it can actually be like that. I can't sit at a computer like regular people. I have to lean back in chair or else my shoulders get numb.

@wjh67 Yes, there are lots of good discussions about spinal stenosis. There are several ways you could search for them. If you use the search field at the top of the screen you can type in your search words such as "Cervical Stenosis", "lumbar stenosis", "fusion", etc and you'll find a lot of discussions listed that shows the title of a discussion and some context of a comment and the group it is in.

You can also go to the "Spine Health" group and see the list which comes up with most current comments and discussions at the top. You would find several pages of discussions. Usually they open from the first pages (oldest), but you can select to see newest comments first, or select the last page (or any other page) to see the current comments from active members. Older comments may be from a few years ago, and those members may not be active any more.

Another way is to look at my profile by clicking on my @jenniferhunter name, and once there, go to Comments and you can see my responses to other members. I focus on helping many spine patients and also help in some other groups, but you might find something useful looking through my comments. I do talk about my spine surgeon from Mayo Rochester on here a lot too, so you can also search his name ( Jeremy Fogelson ) and that would bring up lots of spine discussions from a lot of different spine conditions as he is a spine deformity surgeon who I have recommended a lot.

You may want to get several opinions before you decide of a surgeon and a procedure. I had 6 opinions. I didn't want to need that many, but the first 5 didn't figure out the problem and that brought me to Mayo to see Dr. Fogelson who knew the answers. There is also Barrow Brain and Spine in the Phoenix area.

I would be happy to answer any questions from my experience of diagnosis and having decompression surgery for cervical canal stenosis. My surgery was a C5/C6 fusion done with only a bone graft. I did not have any hardware and I stayed in a neck brace until it fused which was 3 months. I don't have to worry about hardware complications or reactions to implant materials and metals and I had excellent results from my surgery.

I hope you'll share your good news when you get scheduled for a spine consult. Mayo is a great choice for spine care. I was very impressed.

Hi Wjh67,

I'm in the Seattle area and was wondering who you ended up having surgery with? I have the same issue and am searching for a good cervical doc. Thanks in advance!

@litwin Welcome to Connect. I wanted to give you a little help with tagging member @wjh67 If you type it like I did with the "@" sign in front of their handle, they will get a notification of your post. Are you looking for a surgeon in the Seattle area? If you are willing to travel to Rochester, my surgeon, Jeremy Fogelson, is excellent.

Thank you for sharing. I am considering coming to the Mayo clinic for an opinion from a neurosurgeon. I am from Canada. How expensive is it?

@nadiachar I don't know how to answer your question. For sure, spine surgery is expensive, and then there is the international dollar conversion and the question about health care coverage or not. There is a patient advocate office for Canada that may be able to answer your questions. Here is the link to contact them.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/departments-centers/international/locations/canada

Thanks so much! I am gathering opinions at present and hope to eventually arrive at a plan I can be peaceful with. I will contact that office.