Today I'm waiting to go to an appointment with the referring Orthopedic Physician to discuss the MRI results with him. I posted a question yesterday though and have yet to receive a response.
I'm finding that there are multiple procedures that I fall into for the categorial classifications. I'm really confused if I do end up having surgery which one that I'll fall under and what procedure they'll actually do. I guess I should leave this to the professionals but right now I also feel like I'm on information overload and I'm searching for answers and help. I can't post in the doctor/patient forum because of it being closed so where do I actually obtain answers to the questions?
I keep reading postings in the meantime but I'm still coming up with little comfort into my own maladies. It's just frustrating to know that I have these symptoms and have MRI results but no real answers as to what I should do. I know that I have options, two to be exact, therapy and surgery. I want therapy first but six weeks is a long time to go through it and then find out that it didn't work. Do I really want six more weeks of these symptoms, when clearly I had enough because I sought treatment. I would give anything to sleep like a normal person, to be able to just lay my head on a pillow and wake up eight hours later refreshed and ready to greet a new day. Instead I wake up more often than not in dire pain and headachey. I've resorted to setting the alarm (a person who has never used an alarm clock to wake up for school, work or appts, relying on my circadian clock) on my cell phone to keep the pain medicines in my system and thereby keeping the pain at a threshhold that I tolerate. I recently ran out of pain meds and discovered a living hell. I was told by the neurology PA that it's not that I have increased pain but that my pain is unbearable without pain meds, I just have a very low tolerance/threshhold without them when the pain returns. He said that it's not a drug denpendency and to not be concerned but it's important that I keep my pain under control. It's quite an ordeal for my night time sleep because I have to put a pillow under my knee with the knee replacement, wrap a heating pad around it, put a cervical pillow around my neck and then add to this...I take water pills...getting up to the bathroom is a huge routine of throwing everything off and putting it back on when I crawl back into bed. Is it any wonder that I'm completely awake by the time my head hits the pillow again? When I finally get my legs and neck in comfortable positions I can return to sleep but it doesn't always happen right away and sometimes not at all. So much missed sleep...so little patience during the day because of it, viscious cycle that I want to end. So now the questions are, where to begin and what to do? If anyone has any response to what procedures work best for C5-C6 with nerve compression, neck, shoulder, back and arm pain, please share them.
Thank you in advance for your time and responses, greatly appreciate any and all.
NaniKai...