mjk

Thank you so much for your response! Yeah, I thought it looked like there might be a little movement at C2-3, but I don’t really know what I’m looking at. One radiologist noted it on one x-ray, but nobody else noted it, and I’ve had several x-rays and a CT scan. I guess I was hoping a congenital fusion would pinpoint the source of my trouble, but maybe it’s not that simple.

I’ve always had a tendency towards forward head posture, and the associated muscle tension has been a cause of headaches for years. But before my surgeries, it felt like I could move my head back to a comfortable position to get relief, and PT and exercise helped a lot to keep it at bay. Since the surgeries, it feels like I can no longer access that resting position, and I’m stuck in a forward head posture position with constant tension and headaches. It feels like the part of my neck that is fused won’t move back like I need it to to achieve a resting position.

Before the fusion surgery, I had intermittent numbness down my right arm, from my thumb to middle finger, the palm in that area, and on my forearm. I would only get the numbness when doing specific motions, such as moving my arm in front of my body, such as when doing a push-up. I could make the numbness go away by stretching my arm back. Occasionally, I seemed to notice weakness in that bicep when doing weight lifting. I tried months of PT and injections into the cervical spine, but the intermittent numbness did not improve. I saw a neurosurgeon who recommended fusion. I was concerned about mobility and a locked neck position, but he assured me that I wouldn’t notice a significant decrease in ROM and that it should only improve my posture. He said disc replacement was contraindicated because he thought there was a problem with the facets.

I had surgery on June 30 of this year. After surgery I had terrible headaches and felt like I could no longer move my head over my shoulders, like it was stuck in a forward position. I also lost a tremendous degree of flexion, to the point where I couldn’t look down at all. My surgeon told me that it would go away with PT, but even after 6 weeks of PT I saw no improvement. The headaches were constant and excruciating. Additionally, I still had the same intermittent numbness in my right arm, but I now had constant numbness in my left arm, extending to my thumb. The new numbness in my left thumb has never gone away. I also had x-rays that suggested that screws may be loose. I thought perhaps the screws came loose because my neck was constantly under tension from being stuck in a forward head position.

I found another surgeon who said that he could revise it using artificial discs. I had the revision done on September 25. He was able to put in an artificial disc at C5-6 but couldn’t do it for C6-7, due to the disc space being too large to fit an artificial disc after removing the hardware from the initial fusion. He said that screws were very loose and he suspects it was because they had entered the disc space.

I noticed an improvement immediately after the revision surgery. I regained some of the flexion I had lost with the first surgery, but it’s still significantly reduced from what I had originally. I also feel as though my head will move more over my shoulders than before, but it also does not go all the way back like it did originally. I still have headaches and feel like I’m stuck in a forward head position. While it’s much improved from the results of the first surgery, it would still be awful to have to live with this for the rest of my life. As far as the numbness, I still have the numbness in my left thumb, but I have not yet noticed the intermittent numbness in my right arm. Since it was intermittent, it’s hard to say for sure whether it’s really gone yet. I haven’t had any imaging done since the revision.

My understanding is that it’s not expected that you could be stuck in a bad postural position with fusion surgery; if anything I thought posture should improve. I was hoping that a congenital fusion might explain why I seemed to have this issue. Do you have any other information about whether this can occur or whether there might be other issues causing this sensation? I also realize my revision was only done about 6 weeks ago, so it may still improve with time, but it feels like I’m hitting the limits of the joints trying to tuck my chin back to a resting position.

Here are the flexion/extension x-rays where the radiologist noted congenital fusion on C2-3.