Think this will buff out? / NO winter detailing for me!

[cardaddy]

So, after months off continued progression towards the wrong side side of things, I broke down and out loud searching to do an ACDF. (Anterior Cervical Disc Fusion.)

Not my first cervical surgery, but definitely the first time they`ve gone in from the front.

OMG OMG OMG They neglected to tell me how bad this would be!

So 8 days into this now and it feels MUCH worse than the day after (which is when they sent me home).

Can`t talk other than a whisper. Or if I DO try and talk loud enough for a conversation, sounds like I have a mouth full of barbed wire and chicken livers. Oh... and that I`ve also had a stroke! (Or at least that`s the way it sounds because I can`t get my esophagus and my tongue to do what it`s supposed to do.)

No bending, no twisting, no looking up, no looking down, no dishwasher, no washing clothes, tying shoes, a r anything over 5#. Basically no nothing... For six weeks.

Then there`s the way they did the surgery. They took some sort of device and stapled it to my collarbone. Yes, that`s STAPLED it to my CHEST.

Then it had some sort of arm on it with a row of needles / spikes / pins that when they apply pressure were inserted into the top of my skull and ran from my hairline all the way over the top of my head. Leaving a nice little blood line of holes in my head. OH JOY!

The head never hurt.
The collar bone on the other hand felt like a 300 pound gorilla have been jumping up and down on it.

But the incision Jesus.... That`s where they neglect to tell you that they`re going to run their fist through your throat.

(All the yellow bruises are where the device was stapled to my chest.)

She yeah....
No detailing for me, TILL SPRING.


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[nickclark08]

Yikes!! Sorry to hear all that - prayers for a speedy recovery

[Poorboy]

wow ... Hope you have a speedy recovery

[SWETM]

Hope for speedy recovery!

I have done that to c5-c7 and replaced 2 discs. Maybe you got it done on different levels? I got lucky they did get it without much touching the delicate parts in the throat. Sure it was painfull and a little hard to speak the first days. The nervedamage was permanent as it took to long before they catched it. But when I do things I recover from bad pain to acceptable over night. Before it took a couple of days in bed be for the high pain decreased some. So happy that it didnt something at least and not getting and worse. It has been 2 1/2 years since the surgery and you can almost not see the scar after it.

I hold my thumbs for you that you get less pain when it has healed. Take it easy until you can rehab the muscles and take it step by step.

Best regards Tony

[GearHead_1]

Best of luck, heal quickly. My wife has been through it twice and she would tell you it was worth it in the end. We didn’t understand the collar bone thing either. She didn’t have a mark on her scalp so obviously the procedures were different. Other than looking up she has no bad side effects.

[Stokdgs]

Tony,
Thank you and yours for helping us to know and see what happened to you.
I am so sorry it is so painful.
I`m glad you`re tough and can get through this just fine.. Yes, it looks like it will take some time too..

When its time, I would rub some Rosehip Oil into the scar and it should help it to come out greatly reduced.
A good company that sells this is GAIA Purity, out of Denver, Colo.. You can find it on Amazon..

Yeah, I think it will buff out just fine !

My prayers of Faith along with those of many others here alone, will be with you and your family..
Dan F

[cardaddy]

Just wanted to say thanks guys for all the replies.

Yup, mine was done it C3/C4 so it`s a little higher than C5 / C7. Although I actually needed C3-C4/ C4-C5 but he wasn`t willing to take the risk in this juncture.

The best odds he gave me for a good prognosis is 60%~70%. Then said he could always go back in and do the C5 area.

I can tell you.... There is no way THIS SIDE OF GODS BLUE HEAVEN I`m letting him go back in the front of my throat!

I feel too that the nerve damage at multiple levels as it is.... may be the restricting factor of the most optimal outcome.

I trust the surgeon implicitly however and he is the one that did my last lumbar surgery in 2014. He is quite accomplished at the Emory Spine Hospital. Something like Associate Professor of Neurosurgery & Orthopedics (all these names attached to his signature).

The strange thng however is I really need to get over this cervical deal because he needs to go back in and do a C5 S1 S2 Fusion in the spring.

I`m just going to have to figure out enough time between this one and that one to get all of my vehicles buffed and coated again so I can sit on my arse another 3 months.

In the meanwhile I really wish this sore (yet numb) throat would go away!
NEVER had anything feel this bad in my throat!

Not to mention I`ve got no feeling in the left side of my face from my chin, along my jawbone, then down to the incision front to back. Talking about WEIRD when shaving!

Likely something to do with the reason I`m talking so weird, because the nerve damage is just making my tongue do really strange things inside my throat.
(IE choking quite a bit. Even having to grind all but my smallest meds.)


Again... Thanks guys for the prayers and well wishes. Lord knows we need them sometimes more than we want to admit.

Off to gargle more chicken livers....

Tony aka/Cardaddy



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[rlmccarty2000]

Sorry to hear the surgery/recovery has been such a pain. Hope you feel better soon. Sending prayers your way. Take care and take plenty of pain meds.

[DBAILEY]

My mother had the same procedure where they went in from the front. It took her quite a while to recover. It has been over a year now and she has started having all the same problems she was having prior to the surgery.

I realize it too late for your circumstances, but if you have any back or neck issues get yourself to a corrective chiropractor and stay away from neck and back surgery. The relief from surgery is short lived. Let the chiropractor get the bones back in their proper place. You can`t just go a few times either. Its like having braces, you can`t just wear them for a week your teeth will just move back to the position they were in. A chiropractor needs to continually move the bones back into position until the back & neck muscles get used to being in the correct positions. For my lower back issue that was causing my right leg to be entirely numb I was going 3 times a week for about 7 months, then twice a week for a few months and now I go once a week as maintenance. It took about 1.5 months of adjustments until I got complete feeling back in my leg. Then I could feel the knee pain caused from walking funny with a numb leg.

[DaveT435]

Hope you`re feeling better To y. Welcome back to the forum again. Hopefully you stick around for a while this time.

I waiting for authorization for them to go in and fix my problem I told you about. This one has me a little nervous.

[jester7677]

This is not selling me.

Please tell me if you contributed to your spinal issues and what it is that you did, so I can not do that...

Hope you feel better. You made me feel a lot better about my boo boos...

[jester7677]

If a Chiro works for you, god bless, I wish.

I`ve got lower back issues for the past 21 years, and every time I go to a chiropractor they make it worse hurt much worse, for me that is, and I`ve seen about 4. I apparently have too much mobility in that area (as diagnosed by a PT I had do a comprehensive at home visit). I stopped all stretching of the back and I`m doing my own PT at home 3 days a week. Much, much better... but to say I had to start the PT slow would be an UNDERSTATEMENT.

[Accumulator]

cardaddy- Aw gee, sorry to hear it`s such an ordeal, hope you turn the corner soon and things start getting better. Gee#2, that`s really something how they did NOT fully inform you about what to expect!

[SWETM]

Yeah the shaving feeled weird at first for me too. But after a couple of weeks the healing process did it`s job and it`s was back to normal. Some feeling came back to my left hand aswell not full but a feeling like it belonged to my body again.
This was the first step for me also to do a lower back surgery. But the surgical doctor that was going to do that backed out when time was coming. I need to swich discs from c2-s1 and even if they could do it in 2 surgerys they wont. Have to go to another hospital to do that now and to do so is alot of bureaucracy where I live. So I still work on my self to get the energy to put up a fight for it. They have done so many things wrong for me thrue the years with that they thinked I was to young to have what I had. And when they came up with it and surgery was done twice in the lower back first. It was to late and permanent nervedamage I got. I was 25 when it broke out and could not come back to work unfortuneally. I`m 41 now and early retired so my detailing cars is on hobby level and takes me to split it up in pices to get it done when doing corrections. And those I help out with leaves their cars for days so I not get to much pain afterwards. But that comes whatever I do.

I really hope that you get as good as possible. It`s painfull the first weeks and then it starts to slowly get better. And will be worth it in the long run.

[tropicsteve]

wow cardaddy, so sorry to see all that grief it`s causing you, will be putting you on the prayer list for sure. i considered myself lucky after having mine done back in late 1989. no real complications, but recovery was slow, a year or so. they repaired two of my three damaged levels and the work was done by a neurosurgeon. actually the bone they cut from my hip for the graft was more painful than the fusion. one day at a time my friend.