Lumbar Spine Surgery

[Guest guest]

I've been lurking on the list. I wanted to post this information on what has

been going on with me. One, to see if anyone else has had a Anterior/Posterior

spinal fusions, and what their experiences were with recovery. And two, to

remind list members to get checked out if they are having pain in lower backs,

necks, or unexplained pain in their limbs. Granted when I first started with

this pain, the pain pre-dated my dx of RA, the treatments for the spine were not

what they are now.

Well last year was fusion for my cervical spine. This year it is my lumbar

spine. My new MRI has a laundry list of issues: DDD, stenosis of my spine and

foramen, arthropathies, hypertrophies, hemangiomas, and something described as a

nonspecific heterogeneous appearance to the bone marrow which may reflect

sequela from infiltrative process considering the patient's clinical history.

What I know and is easy for me to understand without doing a long search on the

internet is that my discs are all dried out and compressing, I have bone spurs

everywhere, my facet joints are bone on bone on two levels, and I'm tried of the

pain!

So, imagine having pain in your groin. So you go to the Rheumy and have x-rays

and he doesn't see anything wrong with your hip joints. A little wear on your

cartiledge but nothing that would cause the pain you are having. You have pain

in knee, again the x-rays look okay. There is some swelling in your knee, so

you get a cortisone shot. No relief from the pain. So you go to your

orthopedic surgeon. Last year he did cervical fusion, which improved the

function and pain level of my right arm at least 80%. So over the past couple

of months, I started and have slowly gone up to 1200 mg of neurotin daily to

deal with the referred pain from either my cerival or lumbar areas. Which helps

cover up the pain, it does not treat the cause of the pain. I am still in pain,

but it's 'better' than it was. Since getting the pain kind of under control,

that is when a CT and MRI was done. My Surgeon wanted to see if something had

gone bad with the cervical fusion. Luckily that cervical spine fusion looks

great. The levels above and below, will in the future have to be dealt with,

but that is just one of the joys of RA affecting the cervical spine. This year

we are dealing with the lumbar spine. It is messy, and my surgeon is going to do

a anterior and posterior fusions with rods, screws and such. Hopefully this

will do two things, stabilize my spine, and reduce the pain.

I am having surgery next Tuesday. I have a surgeon I trust. He is a Spinal

Reconstruction Specialist, and only works on spines. I am staying in the

hospital for 4 days, and will go to a rehab hospital for a week or so directly

after that.

Again, has anyone else had this type of surgery? I know last year several

people answered my post, and I am grateful for their reponses. Just knowing

someone else has done this before with RA and is doing okay eased my mind a lot.

Thanks