Thank you for your response kitty1luv. I havent been back on til now. Glad to say the blood clot did ho away, but here we are 2014 and the pain still exists. I still have shooting pain going down my leg and into my arm as well as pressure in the back of my head. it was a work related accident, when i went back to the surgeon he said it has nothing to do with his surgery and refused to see me again. I found out a couple of month ago that i now have nerve damage which didnt exist before :(
Hi
Thank you for your very informative response to suzyq81. I just had surgery for c6-7 discotemy/fusion april 21. I have some pain on the right side of my right arm. It was worse last week. i get zings of pain periodically and numbness in my hands. I realized rest is the answer right now and i bought one of those hot/ice pad made from i think sand. Before surgery heat made me feel better. Post surgery the Doc reccommended the cold. between the rest and the ice packs i do feel better this week. Although, i still have some of those symtoms i feel optimistic its part of the healing especially after reading your post.
Thanks again
I am so sorry to hear of your discomfort following your surgery. You are just one week postop and hopefully the pain will start to diminish soon.
The numbness and shooting pain in your arm could last for a longer period of time.
It mostly depends on the severity of nerve compression prior to surgery and the interval between onset of symptoms and the surgery.
I hope that your doctor has been informed of your pain and has provided you with sufficient pain medication to ease your discomfort.
I think you probably have a hematoma (collection of blood) at your incision site. This is not a usual complication with fusion surgeries, but it should reabsorb over time and you should not sustain any residuals.
I am almost 3 months postop cervical fusion C4-C7 and experienced less pain after surgery than you are experiencing. I have struggled with some residual numbness in my hand and some muscle spasms in my shoulders. Muscle relaxants and physical therapy is helping resolve that problem. The numbness will take longer as the nerve is only able to regenerate slowly.(approximately 1mm/day)
Give yourself time to heal properly and keep within the restrictions imposed by your doctor and you should feel better soon,
Keep us posted and I wish you the best ---