Hello Dr. Corenman,
Since my last post my wife and I have gotten a second opinion for what is wrong with her and it was completely different than what her original surgeon said. I would like to know your opinion based on what this newest surgeon suggests. This Neurosurgeon has a reputation as one of the best in SC. He told us that my wife had multiple problems and they in his opinion should all be addressed. He said that she had pseudarthrosis from her past surgery and that the hardware was loose (from the movement in the straight and flexed imaging). He said she had severe compression on the nerve roots at both C5 & C6. He also stated that she had a reverse curvature or lordosis of her neck. He proposed fixing all of those things. I asked him were those PEEK cages the last surgeon used and he said Yes. His recommendation is to go back in Anteriorly and remove the loose hardware and decompress the nerve roots. He then said he would like to “rebuild” her neck to help give her a more natural curvature. He said he would do that by taking some of her bone and mix it with cadavar bone, etc. to form her neck at the levels of her surgery and a little above. He was extremely confident this would do the job. He told us if the hardware was not removed it would not fuse. What advice can you give from this new information? Thank you so much for your time Dr. Corenman. It is greatly appreciated!