[BeckyMae]

#8922

Hello I had cervical fushion surgery in Oct 2012, C5 & C6 ,bone graft from my own hip, which still hurts at time too…Surgery really helped with the serious pain I was having..as in I wanted to cut my arm off due to the pain being so bad, however I still have some pain, lost my job job because of this & still unable to work.. I’m only 36 years old and feel like I’m 80! I recently started having worse pain in the same arm, neck, shoulder blade and and now the right leg, Could this be reoccurring herniation or is it too soon to say??

[Donald Corenman, MD, DC]

#8925

You underwent an ACDF at C5-6 most likely for nerve compression (radiculopathy). It sounds like you had a reasonable recovery for arm pain relief. I assume that the surgery was not performed for neck pain.

Where is your pain now? Is it neck pain, arm pain, shoulder pain or a combination. Please see the section on the website; “How to describe symptoms” to fully explain your current condition.

Did the surgeon backfill the graft site with a bone substitute or was the graft taken without any fill?

The use of your own bone graft reduces the chances of pseudoarthrosis (lack of fusion) but does not eliminate it. You could have developed a pseudoarthrosis. Do you have new X-rays and/or an MRI?

There should be no chance of a recurrent herniation but if the level did not fuse, bone spurs could still grow which could cause some recurrence of nerve compression. It is possible that you could have chronic radiculopathy (see that on the website).

Dr. Corenman

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