Dear Dr. Corenman,
I hope all is well and that you and family are safe and healthy. My situation continues with no improvement and a follow-up with a physiatrist that I’ve seen a couple of years ago, mentioned that a big part of my problem is with lack of decompression of cervical foraminal nerves. My orthopedic surgeon stated to me that my nerves are not severely compressed so they can be ruled out as pain generators, however pain management disagrees. Pain management position is you “shouldn’t have severe compression after decompressive surgeries and that a well known reason for post surgical pain is inadequate decompression of cervical nerves which can irritate these nerves and cause symptoms”.
We went over my scans again and he is very confident that indeed my source of pain is lack of decompression, there’s a solid fusion from C3-T1. I wanted to get your input, a “surgeon’s view” on this, does this make sense that one does not need severe compression after decompressive ACDF’s, Laminectomies, Facetectomies and Foraminotomies in order to have pain? Thanks in advance
