Hello Dr. Corenman,
Since we last spoke, I’ve been to two additional spine surgeon consults and my pain doctor.
My pain doctor wants me to stay away from any additional surgeries. The main reason is, in his opinion, fusions should be reserved for severe cases, i.e fractured vertebra, deformity) . He would like me to trial an implantable spinal cord stimulation device. We spoke about Discogram, SNRB,Epidural injection, and Facet blocks. He is open to performing an Epidural injection and provided to me a brochure that explains the spinal cord stimulation process.
Spine surgeons had different opinions, the first, agrees with pain doctor, he would also recommend spinal cord stimulation device and avoid additional fusions. He believes there is a musculoskeletal issue due to my laminectomy procedure. The issue is a disfunction, the lamina bones are removed, so the muscles are now tied together, rather then being connected to lamina. He also was concerned with the number of surgeries, (5 cervical, 1 inner ear), all procedures performed within the past 5 years.
The second surgeon agrees with my current surgeon. He noted that anteriorly I am fused from C3 to T1 (solid). He would also extend the posterior fusion to T2 (currently fused from C3-C7–instrumentation removed) and add instrumentation from C5. There are degenerative changes, however more importantly he feels there is instability, that a fusion would address.
Would a flexion/extension X-rays show this instability? Thanks,