S
Sweetbreath
Guest
I've noticed that a lot of the posts on here have been fairly negative, which makes sense because people don't go to a support forum when things are going well.
It is unlikely that I will be back here because I'm just not into the whole forum thing, but I figured I would leave a little sucess story for those coming here and wondering if surgery is really the right way to go.
When I was two I fell off a four foot retaining wall and landed on my head. My parents took me in and had x-rays done, but the results said that everything was structually fine aside from a fractured skull and a major concussion. I ended up having seizures for the next two years after the accident. After the seizures stopped, I still had migraines about twice a month from about age five until now.
At the age of 23, I was in a very serious car accident where the vehicle was wrenched in all different directions so viciously that my head hit both shoulders hard enough to leave me with sore shoulders (try putting your head to your shoulder and you'll see why this is such a big deal) before I was flung forward and then flung backward when the airbag deployed.
At the age of 26, I was in yet another car accident where I rolled a large van about 1 1/2 times knocking myself unconcious by hitting the driver side window in the process.
As I am sure you can inmagine there was A LOT of pain involved in these accidents, and I had x-rays taken every time. Every time the x-ray said there was no injury. I had been in constant pain since I was a child, and the pain only worsened with each additional accident.
The point that finally pushed me to seek out a more thorough diagnosis was that during my college classes, every time I looked up from reading, I got light headed and it felt as if something were pinching nerves as well as my spinal cord. An MRI and CT scan was immediately ordered through which the doctor discovered the odontoid bone between c1 and c2 had broken and healed with soft tissue instead of bone and the reason for the pinching feeling was c1 moving around and pinching my spinal cord.
I was scheduled for surgery two weeks later. This was about three months ago. The doctor said that the break was so old that it either occurred during the fall when I was two, or I was born with it. In the mean time, any one of the accidents I had been in after that could have been fatal. A minor slip on the ice or tripping over a toy on the floor could have been enough to jar my neck just enough and because the break was so high on my spine, it would not have caused paralysis. It would have been fatal.
I am still in some pain, but not quite as much as before the surgery. I have been coping with pain all my life so I don't take meRAB for it because I am used to it. It hurts when I take meRAB too, I'm just too doped up to care, so other than not **revised** caring, the meRAB are pointless.
The point of this post is to say that if your doctor recommenRAB surgery, ALWAYS get a second opinion, but in most cases, the surgery does relieve the pain, and if it does not (as in my case) considering you could either be in pain and not risk dying or be in pain and risk dying from a klumsy mistake, I would say the peace of mind and added years of life are worth it.
I know not everyone's situation is as life threatening as mine was, but it is nice to know that there are people out there who surgery has helped instead of making things worse.
Good Luck to all of you in your **revised** recoveries!
It is unlikely that I will be back here because I'm just not into the whole forum thing, but I figured I would leave a little sucess story for those coming here and wondering if surgery is really the right way to go.
When I was two I fell off a four foot retaining wall and landed on my head. My parents took me in and had x-rays done, but the results said that everything was structually fine aside from a fractured skull and a major concussion. I ended up having seizures for the next two years after the accident. After the seizures stopped, I still had migraines about twice a month from about age five until now.
At the age of 23, I was in a very serious car accident where the vehicle was wrenched in all different directions so viciously that my head hit both shoulders hard enough to leave me with sore shoulders (try putting your head to your shoulder and you'll see why this is such a big deal) before I was flung forward and then flung backward when the airbag deployed.
At the age of 26, I was in yet another car accident where I rolled a large van about 1 1/2 times knocking myself unconcious by hitting the driver side window in the process.
As I am sure you can inmagine there was A LOT of pain involved in these accidents, and I had x-rays taken every time. Every time the x-ray said there was no injury. I had been in constant pain since I was a child, and the pain only worsened with each additional accident.
The point that finally pushed me to seek out a more thorough diagnosis was that during my college classes, every time I looked up from reading, I got light headed and it felt as if something were pinching nerves as well as my spinal cord. An MRI and CT scan was immediately ordered through which the doctor discovered the odontoid bone between c1 and c2 had broken and healed with soft tissue instead of bone and the reason for the pinching feeling was c1 moving around and pinching my spinal cord.
I was scheduled for surgery two weeks later. This was about three months ago. The doctor said that the break was so old that it either occurred during the fall when I was two, or I was born with it. In the mean time, any one of the accidents I had been in after that could have been fatal. A minor slip on the ice or tripping over a toy on the floor could have been enough to jar my neck just enough and because the break was so high on my spine, it would not have caused paralysis. It would have been fatal.
I am still in some pain, but not quite as much as before the surgery. I have been coping with pain all my life so I don't take meRAB for it because I am used to it. It hurts when I take meRAB too, I'm just too doped up to care, so other than not **revised** caring, the meRAB are pointless.
The point of this post is to say that if your doctor recommenRAB surgery, ALWAYS get a second opinion, but in most cases, the surgery does relieve the pain, and if it does not (as in my case) considering you could either be in pain and not risk dying or be in pain and risk dying from a klumsy mistake, I would say the peace of mind and added years of life are worth it.
I know not everyone's situation is as life threatening as mine was, but it is nice to know that there are people out there who surgery has helped instead of making things worse.
Good Luck to all of you in your **revised** recoveries!