just an FYI for ya here but depending upon your surgeons ego,he may or may not be the right person to actually see about this. it would appear tho that your rhemy doc is much more on the ball here. i would actually ask your rheumy or your primary for a referral for an MRI just to really "see' if something did indeed occur during your surgery.
believe me,i was actually out right lied to by my neurosurgeons nurse after my NS placed the hardware when my c spine fusion didn't take? i had already been obtaining all my own copies of my MRI results prior to this little event just because of info i had not been told about BEFORE. so she tells me everything was just 'fine' and they couldn't find the reason for my right neck to be locking up and the horrid pain that had set in very shortly after the plate and screws had been placed. well the copy of MY report actually stated i had an impinged nerve root at c 7. she was NOT going to actually tell me about that since 'her boss' had done it during my hardware surgery. i was really shocked and she was even more shocked when i simply asked her,well what about that impinged c 7 nerve root it states in the report at the bottom of page one? you could have heard a pin drop. caught her wayy off guard there,the witch.
i of course didn't bother to even go there and went up to the U of MN here in MN only becasue i also was dealing with a cavernous hemangioma that was actually IN my spinal cord right about that same level as my fusion. when i had my spinal cord surgery to try and remove that cavernoma that involved removing the backs of my c6 thru t1, my NS actually discovered that not only did the idiot NS i had had before actually impinge that c 7 nerve root but he actually somehow managed to actually loop it around the ped screw and it was pulled really tightly. lucky for me,this was the area he had to go into and when he saw that nerve root he 'unlooped' it for me or it would have required another hellish surgery thru the back again. once was bad enough.
i am only telling you this because this kind of really crappy stuff goes on all the time with some surgeons. it made me sick that this woman sat there on that phone and lied to me,just lied. sooo, obtaining that MRI and also obtaining all your own test results is something i would very highly recommend for you to do. some surgeons really have no actual ego issues(my ortho is wonderful)and actually want to know why their patient is continuing to suffer and others could give a crap espescially if that damage occured during their surgery. it all depenRAB. but sometimes you justhave to be proactive here and start demanding certain things be done,espescially when you end up with even MORE pain after a surgery that was not there before. something has to be causing your symptoms.
what you described really does sound like some level of actual nerve involvement(possibly even impingment?),you just really DO need that MRI to possibly show where. do not settle for just a CT,only an MRI would really show the areas you need to see the best at this point. finding any doc who is willing to help advocate for you is really a huge deal. i would have youre rheumy doc help you along with this if there are any problems with that surgeon. there is always that inherent risk of causing other damage with any surgery,a spinal surgery is just very high stake for the patient. but i would be pretty much demanding an MRI at this point.
there could also be the possibility of non fusion too. believe me,that does NOT always show itself well on any type of scan. i had a CT that said for certain i was fused(the MRI i had just had done was inconclusive and recommended the stupid CT) when i knew i was not,just based upon the intermittant symptoms and the bone grinding and popping i heard inside my neck(it sounded like rice krispies in there). took me 9 months of bugging the heck out of that wonderful lying nurse to finally get them to give me what would have revealed this non fusion long before if they had just listened to me,a simple flex and ext x ray. showed it really well.
just some suggestions for ya there. you may or may not be able to truely trust any surgeon after any surgery to be totally truthful with you,like i said,it all depenRAB on that particular surgeon. so you DO have to take some matters into your own hanRAB and just start advocating for yourself. i would speak with your rheumy about that MRI tho. i do wish you luck with this,please keep us posted,marcia
