Buckbuster
Senior Member
At age 54 in April of 2007 I started having pain in my right forearm. I assumed I had pulled a muscle or something working in the yard. Pain kept getting worse, finally talked with my general practice doc, he prescribed some oral steroid tablets, the pain went away. Two days after stopping the RX, the pain was back. We did an mri and found stenosis in C 3,4&5. I didn't want to talk to anyone about surgery on my neck, afraid of being paralyzed or worse. Pain kept getting worse in my forearm and then my hand started going numb. Is August my left forearm started hurting. The first neuro surgeon I went to said he had to remove the bone spurs and arthritis. Clean up the bulging discs then fuse everything in place with hardware. I decided to get a second opinion. The second neuro surgeon said he could fix it without fusion. He went in through the back of my neck, cut through each vertebrae and inserted a spacer thus making the opening larger for my spinal cord to pass through. The surgery was a success but I still have nerve damage and have to take large amounts of Neurontin daily. Two years later I had to have L3&4 fused, now I am suffering with pain coming from L2 and L5. April of 2016 I had a spinal stimulator implanted to reduce the pain in my lower back.
Sounds like you have really had a hard time, people don't realize how fortunate they are to not be in constant pain. My pain is 95% gone now. I am limited in what I can do such as lifting and bending.