I had a foraminotomy (c5/c6) done 8 days ago for right severe forminal stenosis (MRI/CT also indicated severe stenosis at c3/4 and c4/5 – but left those alone for now). Symptoms were tingling in my thumb, uncomfortable sensation in my wrist and the feeling of a knot that lived in my middle of my upper back/scapula (all on right side). 7 months of PT, epidurals, trigger point injections, and Rx led to no relief. There was however an initial improvement over a few months as the hand/wrist numbness/tingling was at first very pronounced – but it plateaued after a few months and then settled in to a level that while better inhibited my active quality of life, but no acute pain (I’m only 39 and have 3 young kids).
Posterior foraminotomoy (c5/c6) procedure seemed to go smoothly with pretty minimal post op pain and outpatient. However, all the numbness, tingling, shoulder weakness/knots are still there … Should I have expected “immediate” underlying symptom relief if this was going to work? Or does even a hopefully successfully decompressed nerve need time (how much) to get back to normal? Any guidelines on when I’d see underlying numbness /weakness subside in a typical success?
Thank you so much!
