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Cervical neck and shoulder pain.
15 years after being involved in a motorcycle accident My neck began bothering me with extreme pain. The doctors in Pennsylvania fuse me from C2 to C5. But they did it incorrectly. The doctor at the Florida spine institute told me it was incorrect. He had to remove c4 and C5 out of my spinal column and clean out the annular space between my spinal cord and vertebrae to relieve the pinched nerves and the excruciating pain. Now I have extremely limited range of motion so I cannot do physical therapy. I have a lot of pain in my right shoulder and down my right arm. Severe numbness in my right hand fingertips. I cannot really look up or down very far the hardware just prevents me from being able to move. The one picture indicates the removal of the way they cut away c4 and C5 and remove them so I was technically beheaded for a while. They had to install the plate because there was no longer any bone on the anterior portion of my cervical vertebrae. At least my head doesn't fall off when I try to look down. Lol
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mtmred12, interesting, and frightening that our surgeons are doing the wrong thing. How long were you between surgeries. I had a brachial branch block the stopped my shoulder pain. It won't help the numbness though, which is kind of scary. And I wasn't in a motorcycle accident. You might not care but your name is on the third image. Colleen can help @colleenyoung
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4 Reactions@gently 7 years between surgeries
@mtmred12, I removed the image that included your personal identifying information. See the Community Guidelines, guideline number 9 https://connect.mayoclinic.org/blog/about-connect/tab/community-guidelines/
I also added your discussion to the Spine Health support group too https://connect.mayoclinic.org/group/spine-health/
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1 Reaction@colleenyoung I'm sorry I do not understand why you're adjusted my post. I do not know what you adjusted. It just indicated my condition. Can you state more clearly to me the mistake I made. I would greatly appreciate it I read the blog and I did not see how I did something wrong. Thank you
@mtmred12, I simply removed the image that included your full name and other identifying information to protect your privacy. Feel free to upload the image again with the personal information removed. 🙂
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1 ReactionI am fused C3-C7 and my neck and shoulders constantly hurt. I have a SCS(spinal cord stimulator) that has helped some but still in pain.
I am getting ready to have surgery on my Lumbar area
L3-L5 for severe spinal stenosis so hopefully that will help my lower back pain.
It all sucks and I’m tired of pain, it’s been 19 years so far!!!
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1 Reaction@mtmred12
Sorry to hear your suffering. I can relate some with c5-c7 and l3-l5 fused with hardware. I am having problems in my neck and back/hips/legs and may need more surgery in my near future. 😢
I can relate with restrictions with movement and changes in body mechanics with every move you make. Do they know the source of your pain (which level, which nerve roots, if there is any spinal cord compression, etc.)? What are you currently doing for pain management? Are you on medication and are you getting spine injections? Did they recommend any nerve ablations or pain pumps/stimulators?
Im so sorry for your difficulties. That's one thing that I've noticed after reconstructive orthopedic surgeries. At least in my case. I dont feel as if my doctors discussed with me and prepared me for the loss of function resulting from the surgeries. Although completely necessary and even life saving, I wish that I had a better understanding of what my limitations would be afterwards.
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1 ReactionI have other pictures available but I am unable to post them because they contain personal information. I do not know or understand how to crop out or black out the data. If I ever figure that out I will post other photographs. But you get the general idea of the ones that passed.