Deep

surely the scans will already have been reported by a consultant radiologist :D

Shaun

And if I said I was tee-total .........

















I would be lying ,so lock up your wife as well !!!!!!!!!!;)

No worries mate. Hopefully the house phone will work this time :D

Nah, she'll be in Oz mate. Also a bit old for fancying now, but if she were still 18-35 I'd have gone out and bought a chastity belt for her, no worries:D

Lol

I ve picked a few locks in my time .!!!!!!

Im sure she,s a cracker :thumb:


Hope you get sorted .

Her sister taught my fiancee :D

That was MY older sister. She's 67 this year! Quite a bit older than me:D

Rosie has three sisters in Oz and one ginge in London.

Flipping heck, you're remarkably chipper considering. Fair play to you and best of luck with the op. I think I'd be under the duvet too scared to move ;)

The only thing I can say is that you can look forward to endless hours of us lot keeping you company on here as you recover..... what could be better than that? ..... I'll get my coat :D

HI Tanya triangles

I thought I would chip in as my father and my mother-in-law have both had a fuse and fix.

Mother in law had it done 2 weeks ago, she was home within 3 days :freak3: initially she didn't feel that much better but is now saying that she is not feeling any neck pain and the tingling she had in her arms is gradually reducing - I will add she left it get so bad that she could hardly walk, factor in her doctors just kept giving her pain killers :mad:

To put into context just how close to being in a wheel chair she was, from being seen in A&E, she had an MRI, and within 5 days was operated on....

My dad has had a fuse and fix twice once on the upper neck and 2nd time on lower spine.

He is now pretty much fine, last one was about 12 months ago and he can do most things he used too, however he is 65 so he is not going to be as able bodied as some one youger than him. he is fine with most things around the house, gardening, diy but avoids any heavy manual work = digging, heavy lifting.

Neither had any nasty side effects in terms of speach etc.

The one thing you have to do is listen to the specialists, if they say you need this and must stop physio etc then personally I would take their advice.

The road to recovery is fairly slow after the op and you must take it easy but the long term benefits outweigh the short term restrictions :)

The very best of luck and try not to worry too much as it is a fairly routine operation by todays standards - do take it easy prior to getting the op done for your own sake!

Cheers

GB

:Suspiciou

Second opinion might be worthwhile I guess - this time not in a 3rd world hospital!

You need to remember though, you are statistically likely to have a successful op - few weeks relaxing in the sunshine while you get better, then have improved usage of your back compared to recently! Look on the positive side!

Hope it all goes well, and chin-up!!!

Sounds a terrible dilemma to be in TT.

Just one thing - why do they have to go in through the throat?
Why not through the back of the neck?

ETA - re your Lee Marvin comment.
At least you'd be able to sing like this ;)
( move it to 1:10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnbiR...eature=related

Hi TT,

sorry to hear the bad news, I feel guilty for bugging you with my problem now....

Get as much advice as possible, as a fellow back pain sufferer, due to an RTA in 1995, I have no useful advice... so nothing new there then.

dunx

P.S. No way are you getting into my rudy Tein infested jalopy....

I was born under a wandrin star :D:D

tough call, now or later...

sounding like Hank Marvin ;) hmm

on a more serious note...


if as you say your going to end up that way, what are the timescales involved?

if its 6 months without the op , and 8 with, then its a very close call..

on the the other hand if its 8 with the op and 4 without..

any op carry's a risk.

if i recall when i had my wisdom teeth done, it wasn't until i'm just about to be prepped that they told me the risks..

potential paralysis of the tounge, jaw & or gums.. with the effects being temporary 3 days - 3 months or perminant.

It depends on how much pain your in, and how badly you want the op

Mart

If i was in this position, i would get as much info i could, get a second opinion and base my decision then.

But as serious as your gp says it is i would crack on and get it done, if it works your quality of life will be improved.

Have you got a memory foam mattress and pillow, makes a big difference with regards to backpain, sara how are you getting on with yours i meant to ask a while back.

Good Luck....:thumb:

Had a mate who had exactly the same thing suffered for years untill he had the op-fine now,however all this is anecdotal.
I'd say(and sorry for shouting) READ POST 27 + 31 AND ACT ON IT its the best offer/advice you'll get on this forum(regarding your back at any rate).

cheers richie

pretty rubiish options and certainly not ones I would be wanting to face. But I personally would try something rather than just sit back and wait for it to get worse.
My mum has had years of back problems (about 30 years worth on and off) and had to have a disc removed. They wanted to fuse her back but she refused as that option meant she would lose mobility for ever. It may be a different section in your case, but still horrible options to make.

Good luck :thumb:

Cheers for all the positives, It's good to have friends on here.

We do have a memory foam matress and I have a mf pillow but the Mrs doesn't like any but the thinnest pillow she can get, always takes her own whenever we stay in hotels:rolleyes:

I took my memory pillow to the hotel at the weekend. I would take my mattress if i could :thumb

Hi TT,

Have you tried a T.E.N.S. machine ? Can't remmber if this has been mentioned before...

I only got through the first year of my recovery by being almost constantly attached to mine.

dunx

Well in my experience the consultants have been accurate enough and what they have said to me has always been right.

The same bloke does the ops on private or NHS as you say, so just not necessary to spend huge sums with the private health brigade.

I think from what you say that you have little choice but to get the job done. I doubt very much that he would have said he would do it if he had any doubts and he will have to tell you both sides of the equation anyway. I would not hesitate. Don't know if a second opinion is helpful anyway since he is going by a scan which has told the full story.

I had no choice either when I had to have the three major ops. That did not bother me, just the end result of course. It was all NHS and they did a very good job and took excellent care of me too.

I would look at it in that I could not risk the permanent damage to the spinal cord, That can't be repaired.

Les

Tanyatriangles

I too have thought quite a bit about whether or not to post this...however :confused:

My Dad went in for what ‘sounds’ like a very similar op to yours on the 4th November 2008. He had neck and shoulder pain and loss of use and feeling down his right arm. He had started suddenly falling and although the surgeons said that they couldn’t promise much real improvement in the use of his arm, but hopefully they could stop any further degeneration.

Anyway, I know each case is different etc and obviously age and other factors play a huge part (my dad is 72) but the operation was not a success. Following the op, he was in excruciating pain that morphine was failing to mask for 2 weeks until another MRI scan revealed that they had missed something in the op (a spur or shard of bone that was trapping nerves) and had to operate again.

It has left him wheelchair bound, he has accepted he won’t walk again, he now has speech problems, has had to sell his car and give up his business (he obviously was semi-retired but still did a lot of consultancy work) and was transferred last Tuesday from the Astley Ainslie Hospital (Brain and spinal injury rehabilitation unit) into a nursing home in Peebles where he is receiving full time care until his house can be fitted with ramps, stair lifts, rails etc and then we’ll see if his wife will be able to care for him at home.

My point is that when we talked before his operation and he mentioned the risks that had been pointed out, I very much gave the opinion that “well, they say that before every operation etc etc”, and you really need the operation to stop things from getting any worse. However, having to feed a once strong man his dinner and see him reliant on getting someone else to wipe his backside (not me I may add !!) is a strong reminder of the dangers of the complications that do exist.

I wish you all the very best and I fully appreciate that with every 100 success stories there will always be someone like my dad to show the other side of the coin so I don’t want to put you off whatever course of action the specialists recommend. As I said earlier, every case is different but as you can probably tell, it has had one hell of an effect on our lives.

All the very best to you and I’m really sorry for painting this black picture but I guess it’s something that maybe I needed to get off my chest as well :(

SiPie -
That is a truly $hitty situation to be in for your Dad and also for you.
I just can't imagine being in that position.

All the best to both of you.

I've given it a lot of thought, (most of last night, as I didn't sleep much), and have come to the conclusion that WHATEVER I do is a risk so I am going to have to go for the op.:wonder:

It would be nice to think, however, that in the EVENT of total paralysis, and I mean TOTAL, quadriplegia, there would be some way of ending it all peacefully.:(

Not in the UK though,:mad: and yes, I do know it's a coward's way out, thanks anyway to anyone who was about to post that;)

Well I won't drive you to Switzerland Jeff :D

As you said earlier though, you have a top top guy doing the op (now you're going ahead with it), and a wonderful family to pull through for. :thumb:

Remember that.

And what your talking about is worst case scenario.... :thumb:

ZIP106

In answer to your question going throught the front of the neck....it'sthe least dangerous way to get to the lamina which is displaced. The front of the neck is pretty lax and all the nerves and blood vessels can be moved to one side to allow access.

Going through the back of the neck is like starting in tiger country, there are nerves and muscles that can't be moved easily.

Also all the musculature is kept intact around the spine as they are needed to support the head as usually no splinting is used.

Sounds daft but it's the safest way :D

Shaun

Correct, I asked the same question of my consultant, and also if you look at a spine, or a model of one :D, there are large bony protrusions sticking out at the back of each vertebra, which also make access difficult.