(no subject)

[sprinklethief]

i think the disk that was herniated in my neck finally tore and blew out. i awoke this morning screaming in pain, like literally, and sobbing. after about an hour of trying to sit up, joey brought me in a vicodin (i threw away all my percocet from the spine fusion cuz i wanted to be off drugs) which barely helped. the doc called in tylenol 3 because i didn't have time to go pick up a script for percocet, so here i am.

something tells me surgery is in my very near future. so not happy about going under the knife again, but i hear cervical spine has a shorter recovery time than lumbar.

why can't i ever get a break!??

Comments

[indy-skies.livejournal.com]

they can replace knees and hips... man, i wish they could just give you some sort of bionic spine.

[indy-skies.livejournal.com]

at this point the question is probably redundant but with your history... have you been evaluated for any degenerative diseases? i wonder if there is anything preventative they can do as this seems to be a recurrant theme in your life.

[paroxysm-cycle.livejournal.com]

i have degenerative disk disease on multiple levels, but i can't help but think there's a bigger picture.

any suggestions?

[ciani.livejournal.com]

I have seen information around that someone is working on creating artificial discs. I didn't read up into it too much since I wasn't getting a fusion with my last surgery, but yeah. hopefully it's close to being reality and can be used in people with fusion surgery like Kym.

http://www.spineuniverse.com/displayarticle.php/article1671.html

[paroxysm-cycle.livejournal.com]

they've actually been doing them in the cervical spine for a while now, it's becoming the front line surgery over the discectomy (cuz they have to fuse when they do it in the cervical spine for some reason). the guy at cleveland clinic that specializes in them said i was the perfect candidate for my lumbar, but you can't have arthritis for them, which means that asshole didn't even look at my chart cuz i was diagnosed with arthritis in my spine when i was 15-16.

i see the neurologist wednesday, then a neurosurgeon, but i'm undoubtedly going to need surgery for this bad boy cuz it KNOW it blew out, i can tell just from the fact that i can no longer turn my head without my hands going numb. nice, yeah?

[ciani.livejournal.com]

can you go to cleveland clinic? my surgeon is seriously awesome. His name is Samuel Borsellino and he's out of Lakewood hospital.

[paroxysm-cycle.livejournal.com]

yeah i can, actually. is he neuro or ortho? i'm gonna need neuro because of the spinal cord involvement (BAD stenosis). did you actually get the surgery done in lakewood? lakewood is the only place besides NYC that ever felt like home to me so i could totally see being laid up there a few days :)

[ciani.livejournal.com]

he's neuro. I wasn't going to let an ortho mess with my spinal column! YIKES I did get the surgery done in Lakewood, and it really was as good as I could have expected. Everyone was very nice and attentive. They took the time to calm me down because I was scared (never had GA before), and they were more than willing to give me the morphine I needed to be comfy. They're rebuilding the ortho wing right now so if you were to do it soon you'd most likely be admitted to a different floor, but I could totally come and visit you. It's like.. a block away? from where I live! His office is in that building right next to Lakewood Hospital too so he's close. He also prefers doing surgery in Lakewood, but I know he also does it at Lutheran and maybe one more CC hospital.

[ciani.livejournal.com]

He doesn't mince words either. When I went to see him our first appointment was about an hour and a half long. He went over my films and then talked to me in depth about my history and symptoms. When we talked about the surgery he was upfront about what he was confident it would fix and what he wasn't sure about. In the end when I asked him point blank what he would recommend he told me, but up until I asked that question he gave me all my options and as much info as he could on each of them including how well he thought they would help.

[paroxysm-cycle.livejournal.com]

it would be made of titanium and platinum. i'd be the million dollar woman!

[ciani.livejournal.com]

oh honey that sucks :( :( Try to relax and hopefully some of the inflamation will drop. If you can get the perc script then you can take aleve with it, but I don't know if you can take aleve with t3.

next time you should send your drugs to someone else or lock them up somewhere. I'm paranoid about the drugs now but I'll never give up my painkillers just in case I need them. (case in point I had to take one of my darvosets today.. last one actually)

f-ing spines

[paroxysm-cycle.livejournal.com]

yeah, i'm kinda kicking myself for tossing them now, but i just didn't trust myself. i was starting to take them for both physical AND emotional pain, which is no good for an ex heroin addict, lol.

i miss mah percocet. i loveded you percocet, i loveded you!

[ciani.livejournal.com]

yeah percoset is awesome til you try to stop taking them and want to die from the withdrawal hell!

[paroxysm-cycle.livejournal.com]

a-freaking-men on that. skin crawly toss and turn yuckness. oh, and the cold sweats?! WONDERFUL!

[ciani.livejournal.com]

seriously! and there was the morphine induced itch fest. I thought I was going to rip my skin off.

[ciani.livejournal.com]

Artificial disc study in Chicago

artificial disc replacement clinical trial update

Cleveland clinic does artificial disc replacement on the lumbar spine, but they're still doing studies on cervical spine.

[paroxysm-cycle.livejournal.com]

i'm more than likely gonna have to do that in my cervical spine, though this is really low in the cervical spine, just above the thoractic. i have a sneaking suspicion that there's more than one tho.

[woodfaery.livejournal.com]

oh my goodness, that is so horrible. Even if you have to have surgery again, I hope it helps.

[paroxysm-cycle.livejournal.com]

thank you, i do too. i just remember how much better i felt waking up from the fusion and i'm sort of excited to get this done and over with so i can feel my thumbs again.