BamaMike
Member
Post count: 3

I ended up having ACDF yesterday in Birmingham, Al. My left arm pretty well went numb and I was also having memory loss. I have been wondering if the memory loss could be traced back to spinal cord compression.

My Pain Management Dr has talked to me about trying Suboxone for pain management since I was starting to worried about taking pain meds with all the tylenol and the damage it could be doing to my liver. He felt Suboxone would treat my pain well. I was willing to give it a try. It really did not work very well and I felt drugged after taking it.

I informed the nurses at pre-admit and also all the nurses and the anesthesiologist before I went into surgery. I came out of surgery in extreme pain and they could NOT control it due to the suboxone blocking all the pain meds they gave me post-op. The Doctor in post-op decided to give me morphine any way and he thought it would not hurt me and could possibly help me out. They decided to put me in Neuro ICU for the night to better help manage my pain. I came out of surgery around 11:30 am yesterday and the half-life of the Suboxone was up about 6pm. I pretty well had to just tough it out for about 6 hours. Very painful! But the surgery relieved all my left arm pain, occipital headaches.
All the feeling has come back in my arm.

I spoke with your nurse and was in the process of sending her my MRI disk and paper work. Once I lost all the feeling in my arm I decided along with my Neurosurgeon that I needed to get this surgery done ASAP.

I am glad that I went ahead and had the surgery as the results have been amazing so far.

I have a Medtronic piece of PEEK and Medtronic plate and screws in my neck.

To all the people who are reading this: Don’t be scared to have this surgery done. Find a qualified surgeon and you will get great results. I do not believe laser surgery is justified in neck and back surgery. My Neurosurgeon has “fixed” over 20 people who went to Florida and paid a ton of money to have spine surgery done via laser. The laser places in Florida are just there to make a ton of money for the owners.

Thank you soooo very much for all your help. I hope to never have this issue again but if I do, I will be headed to Colorado to visit your clinic.

Warmest regards,

Mike Couch