Guest guest Posted October 3, 2000 Report Share Posted October 3, 2000 In a message dated 10/03/2000 6:28:48 AM Eastern Daylight Time, grigg@... writes: << Hi Janet, Why don't you introduce yourself, let us know your chair history a little bit better :-) Kathleen WACMA list manager >> Hi Kathleen and all, The following is a condensed version of my story. Here goes... 4 1/2 years ago, I had a work related injury. I injured my neck, shoulder and left arm moving office things that were too heavy for me to lift. I went out on workers comp. and the DR's told me that I had impingement in the AC joint of my left shoulder. I was then operated on to correct this. After the surgery, the pain was still the same and my neck was still killing me. Plus I was getting numbness and pain all the way down to my fingers in my left hand. As I was also very overweight, the DR's kept blaming all of my physical problems on the weight. So in 1997 I had a gastric bypass done, and dropped 150 lbs. This made me feel better, but the pain was still there and getting worse. Now my left leg was extremely painful, and I had no power in it. I have to one foot it going up stairs. My DR's said I needed knee surgery. This was done. It did not help. Because I was in so much pain still with my left shoulder, they did another surgery on it, and it did not help. I can't raise, lift, carry, push, pull, or write with this arm, and I am left handed. This presents a continual problem. Lucky me...Surgery did not help. I kept telling my DR's that my neck hurt a lot, and there answer to that, was, that it was related to my shoulder, and just muscular spasms. The DR's decided to do surgery on my left wrist, for a tendon release. No help there again... In between all of this, I have developed a chronic sinus condition, constant diarrhea, migraines (15 to 17 day average), shallow breathing, skin sensitivities, but lack of feeling, insomnia, major depression, a limp, trouble swallowing, heart palpitations, dizziness or lightheadedness, etc. DR's kept treating everything separately. They did not relate everything together. The next step to trying to rid my neck and shoulder pain, was to remove 1 inch of bone from the shoulder a/c joint and leave it disconnected. (OUCH- did not sound like fun) I finally persuaded my dr. to request an MRI of my neck before we went that route. On August 30th, 2000, I was told by my orthopedic surgeon to go see a neurosurgeon as soon as possible. He would not tell me what was wrong in the MRI, but said a neurosurgeon would explain. So, I saw 1 surgeon and he said that I needed surgery right away. He said that I had an Arnold Chiari Malformation with 8 mm herniation of my tonsils, and Syringomyelia with a syrinx from C4-T1, lordosis, and degenerative disc disease. He ordered an MRI with contrast of my neck and brain. The results of those MRI's showed, ACM 1, 12 mm herniation, a syrinx from C1 to T1, another syrinx at T4 to ?, and lack of blood flow to my brain via the brain stem. I don't know how big that syrinx is yet, I won't know till next week. And they are so large that they are expanding my cord. Well, when my original neurosurgeon saw this, he said " I would have no problem with you getting a second opinion from someone who specializes in this, I have only ever seen 2 to 3 cases like this and never as bad as yours. " So I came home crying, and confused, and decided to empower myself with the Internet, and thank goodness, all of you! I went to see another surgeon in Manhattan, NY, at Beth Israel Hospital, and he said my case was " moderate to severe " . He agreed that surgery was warranted. Surgery was scheduled for October 17th, 2000. In less than two weeks. My dr. is going to do the decompression surgery first. Then in about 6 weeks we will have a follow up MRI, and see where the syrinx are as far as size (We hope they will go down). We will make a decision then as to what to do at that point. I am scared to death. But I am truly optimistic about the possible success of this surgery. I am hoping to feel better, and resume at least part of my life. The doctor tells me that this will be a life long problem, and that he cannot guarantee anything, but he will do what he can. So, there it is, my little story. I am sorry it is so long, I condensed it as much as possible. Thanks to all of you for reading and understanding. You are all with me everyday, I hope one day we can all feel much better!!!! Hugs to you all, Janet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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