Post surgery burning pain

All I can say is I have a lot of sympathy for your situation, I did not have the same procedure rather a spinal fusion which you refused, and it is hell to recover from, if I ever will recover. I have no info on the course my symptoms are expected to take to resolve, I guess they never will. I am exercising very hard and no progress. I also cannot sleep due to ongoing pain from procedure. I cannot understand how long we are supposed to put up with this - doctors do not communicate on this at all, leaving quality of life post-op to guesswork, depression and "who cares" once the procedure is over.

Hi solom174,

I feel your pain mate and I am sorry that it is like this for both of us.

My neurosurgeon in Florida told me that my surgery was a success!

But if I judge it from my point of view, because I am the one feeling the pain, I didn't think it was.
He may have done it correctly, but the pain is actually worse than before at the moment and chronic.
It is taking my breath away. I don't know how I am going to cope. I hope the it will improve eventually.

I am still ridden with a lot of left sided stabbing neck pain probably due to the inflammation caused by the procedures. My left SCM and Trapezius are incredibly sore. I also think that I still have nerve pain because I feel it deep inside my neck shooting into the left arm, then feeling it into the left foot.
I have been taking Baclofen with little success because I can't get Flexeril in Australia.

I thought that this was going to be my life changing operation that would completely free me of pain and stop taking all those pain meds.
I have had undesired side effects with Nortriptyline, Gabapentin, Lyrica etc. Opioids can only be taken for a short time and NSAIDS drugs do not work for me.

Here are my surgery videos:

I am still in a lot of pain. I will need some time to recover properly

These are my neck surgeries from the 29 Aug 2023

Watch Live Back Treatment! Deuk Plasma Rhizotomy (DPR) B/L C5-T1

Wow - why did you go to FLA for surgery and not do in Australia? I am from Toronto and got mine done there. I am not sure that US doctors have the answer or better procedures than anywhere else - there are so many horror stories in spine and it seems like a lot of Drs are cowboys with Gd complex in this area, which is SO sensitive- (Note 99% of spine surgeons are male, not that males are inherently problematic but it says something when females are not participating in the specialty, maybe a culture issue). Did you complain to your surgeon, you should, I did to mine, I told mine that I am TORMENTED by my symptoms post surgery. The Dr should be aware of how you are feeling.

Hi Solomon174,

How are you?

I followed dr DEUK for more than 6 months, I checked all his reviews, testimonials which looked good.

As I said I didn't want fusion due to the
adjacent segment disease and loss of flexibility.

Minimally laser surgery looked attractive.

My surgeons in Australia wasted 12 months of my time by doing nothing and by allowing my disc degenerative disease to advance.

I have complained to my neurosurgeon that this is too much pain and burning for a successful operation.

I reckons that within 6 to 8 weeks I should improve. I must do daily gentle walking and neck exercises. Currently even the gentle exercises are causing flare-ups but must be done. I have a follow up zoom meeting next week.

Good luck hope your meeting goes well. I am nearing end of week 9 post surgery and having done all exercise religiously and healthy diet - my back is not improved - prior to surgery no pain - after surgery all pain. I think 6-8 weeks is fictional recovery time.

Does he record every surgery? Wish I could get a video of all my surgeries. I often wonder what really happens while I am unconscious.

I think he records most surgeries which are also a marketing tool for him.

I managed to watch my DRDL C6/C7 disc repair procedure and the ryzothomy for bilateral C6-C6, C6-C7, C7-T1 done on 08/29/2023.

I haven't been able to find the video for the Ryzothomy RT L4-L5, L5-S1, BL SI Joints done on 08/30/2023.

My problem is that even though these procedures were minimally invasive I am still experiencing a lot of burning neck pain 24/7. He assured me that things will be improving over the next 2 months but I am still suffering quite a bit with no reduction of pain since the procedures.

I am not letting any physio touch me at the moment and won't be seeking any new interventions. I was led to believe that I would be out of pain straight after the procedures but it isn't as described. I feel a bush fire inside my neck that has been burning since the day of the procedure over 2 weeks ago. The pain is not reducing yet. I will have to give it 2 months at least.

I am sorry this did not work for you. A few years ago, I saw Dr. Deuk's offer for a free MRI review. I live in Colorado and already had 3 surgical opinions here. I scheduled the free MRI review, and to my surprise I had a fairly comprehensive review over Zoom with Dr. Deuk. He proposed some similar procedures for me at almost every level of my spine. My spine is a mess, which is why most other surgeons proposed that I not have surgery and learn to live with the pain. They thought surgery could do more harm than good.

Dr. Deuk's proposal was very tempting. I asked him why surgeon's in Colorado were not proposing his methods to me. He said other surgeons don't know about his techniques yet. That was a bit of a red flag for me, because I had consulted with some of the most renowned surgeons in Colorado. Then I asked about insurance coverage, and was informed the procedures proposed by Dr. Deuk would not be covered by insurance. Anyway, I decided not to spend all of my retirement savings to go to Florida and have surgery with Dr. Deuk. But, I can understand why anybody in pain would have the surgeries that Dr. Duek proposes. He is very convincing, and I'm sure he helps a lot of people. I'm sorry he was not able to help you.

Ultimately, I had 2 surgeries with doctors in Colorado. And nothing changed. We can only hope and pray modern medicine will find ways to help us in the future. I agree with the previous post that says you should continue telling Dr. Deuk about your ongoing pain. I continue to tell my surgeon about my ongoing pain. Maybe the surgery was a success from his perspective, but it was not helpful for you.

Hi jthomas458,

How are you?

I am sorry to hear about your condition.

I think that it is to early to say whether the laser surgery and the ryzothomies have worked or not. Time will tell.

I will not be seeking anymore operations.

Laser surgery for spine has been around for at least 17 years from what I read. A lot of health insurers consider this type of surgery experimental and that's is why they don't cover patients for these procedures. Health insurers mainly cover main stream procedures like fusion, laminoplasty etc.

This doesn't mean that laser surgery is bad at all. With any spinal procedures, whether they are fusion, laminoplasty, laser, there are risks and complications even with the best surgeons in the world. I read a lot about fusion and a percentage of people still feel the pain afterwards even though the surgery was a success. Dr DEUK told me that my procedures were a success but this doesn't always imply that you are going to be pain free.

I received a compensation here in Australia by the traffic accident insurer that I used to pay for Dr DEUK procedures which cost over $70k.

A lot of his patients got relief from his procedures which are minimally invasive because he repairs the disc by removing the bulges, herniations and the bone spurs. I found that these laser procedures are also performed successfully in Italy, Germany, Thailand.

What convinced me to use dr DEUK was the fact that I would not require a fusion where muscles and bones are cut, that it was minimally invasive, that was an outpatient procedure and PubMed had mentioned Dr Deuk's laser technology.

With any surgery no one can claim a 100% success rate. Dr DEUK success rate sits at 95% according to his website. I watched dozens of his live video operations with successful outcomes, dozens of satisfied patient's video testimonials, hundreds of reviews which were mostly positive. I am sure that if he were a bad operator people would know about it and that he wouldn't be able to to run his business for much longer.

I noticed that since the surgery, I am getting a lot of neck cracking inside which is probably due to the deteriorated and ablated facet joints.

I will keep praying out Lord 🙏.

I hope things will improve for you too.

I am dead set to keep fighting to stay alive as long as I can.

I used to be a long distance cyclist and still have the cyclists's grit in me. Never give up.

What struck me about neurosurgery is how crude it really is, there are not a lot of sophisticated solutions and little research seemingly in advancing surgical techniques - most focus is on cord trauma and regeneration which is a long shot we will not see a solution for in our lifetime. We equally need focus on innovation in surgical techniques for spine with actual effectiveness for patients - rather than simply hearing platitude of "the procedure was a success" ie no complication, but the patient outcome is not improved. The patient outcome should be mission critical not solely the procedure being done without complication (but no patient relief).