@da69 I know this is troubling you, and the MRI should give your doctors a lot of information to determine your plan of care. Since you have been through a few surgeries before, you kind of know what that is like. Your doctors will need to determine the source of your pain which can be caused by nerve compression anywhere along the path of the nerve. Spine surgeons need to know if pain is cause by the spine condition such as compression of the nerve where it exits the spine or if there is another compression point outside of the spine.

I am a cervical spine surgery patient, and I can tell you that my experience with a C5/C6 fusion was not bad. It was much less painful than I had expected. I had an excellent surgeon at Mayo and did not have much post operative pain. The pain I had before the surgery that was caused by my spine problem was completely gone when I woke up. I didn't need to use pain meds after surgery and they only nauseated me, so I skipped them and I did just fine. The pain I had was from the incision and surgical path. When I broke my ankle a few years later, that pain was oh so much more painful and over a much longer period of time. I did use pain meds that time, and broke them in half to lower the dose which didn't nauseate me so much. I know you have a lot of pain now, and if it is a structural problem that needs decompression, taking the pressure off may help. When a disc herniates and spills the jelly like substance out of it, that causes inflammation. The inflammation can also trigger bone spur growth and make the problem worse. If this is what happened, intervention now may prevent it from getting worse.

I had spinal cord compression caused by a herniated disc into the spinal canal with bone spurs that grew there. There was no way to fix that except surgery. Without surgery, I would become progressively disabled by this, and surgery gave me my life back, and the coordination in my arms that I had lost. I was so weak, that driving or pushing a shopping cart was exhausting. I had a good recovery, and I don't have more spine issues. I do practice good posture, and I see my physical therapist to work out any muscular issues that put pressure on my neck and shoulders and that keeps everything aligned as it should be. My PT does myofascial release which is a gentle way to take the excess tension and force off muscles that are pulling and exerting that force on other body parts. Doing MFR work before my surgery also helped the tissues be more supple for retraction during surgery and helped the surgeon by making his job a bit easier.

Fear escalates pain a lot. and it may help to do whatever you can to relax and try to stay calm while you wait for answers. You may want to do some research on surgeons so you can choose who you wish to consult. Some spine surgeons are excellent, and others, are not. I looked up everything I could. I had unusual symptoms that confused 5 surgeons and none would help me. That is why I came to Mayo because a surgeon there understood the condition that caused my symptoms.

Do you have a good teaching medical center near you with respected spine surgeons? Waiting for consults for spine surgery can take awhile too, and I hope you can get answers sooner rather than later.

Jennifer