C4-5 dysectomy
Hi, so I am almost 2 weeks out of my surgery. My pain started about 2 to 3 months ago on my right trap. Thought I had pulled a muscle at work so I just kept working no big deal. I’ve had it before then about four weeks ago my trap was really burning so I went to a pain med Doctor Who said they believe I had a torn trap muscle which would not require surgery, but I needed to get an MRI to be sure that’s when the pain really started happening because it was burning a lot, and I started feeling pain behind my shoulder and my deltoid. I could not sleep at night. The pain was excruciating. I had to try and hold my arm up to get it to go away and that’s when I start realizing I couldn’t extend my arm up in front of me or to the side. I had no deltoid or shoulder strength anymore. So the first doctor recommended abrasion surgery, which I guess is when they burn your nerves but then I said let me go to an orthopedic surgeon. The first guy I saw said absolutely not. It wouldn’t do anything that my disc had popped and it was pushing down on all my nerves at go down my arm, especially to my deltoid area and I have lost two out of five functions of my arm already at first he recommended fusion but then he said after looking at it with his other doctors, I’m young and healthy and the replacement will be my best option, especially since I’ve only had the loss of function for a little over a week so the sooner they would take that pressure off the nerve the better chances in my full recovery. I then saw another Doctor Who also recommended it ,as well as another Doctor Who was supposed to get an epidural from he said there’s no point of the epidural losing your function is serious and he highly recommends that surgery as well. He thinks it would be really good for me, especially again since this is a new problem in my arm.
So fast-forward to two weeks ago, I went and got the surgery and honestly, the pain was gone directly after surgery and has not returned. I must say my experience has been great. The only pain I had was in my throat because they go through the front so the first two days it was very hard to swallow anything talking really wasn’t that bad but the swallowing was horrible. The third day it improved them by the fourth day, I was fine to do anything. I’m in a soft neck brace for two weeks until I see the doctor. I was sleeping pretty good every day until now two weeks later I woke up this morning my right shoulder hurting me not the original pain but very sore. I’ve read that when your muscles haven’t been working or use this could be part of recovery and I probably need PT so I’m not gonna stress about that until I see the doctor. Unfortunately my strength and movement of my right arm using my deltoid or shoulder has only approved about 20%. I can do most things with the arm just can’t go straight up with it and I need that for work unfortunately. I think PT will help that I hope. I never had any numbness or tingling even though I lost two out of five functions so I think I’m blessed hoping to hear other people stories if they’ve done the same disc and what to expect but I’m hoping for a smoother recovery and good luck to everybody.