Koi-lo wrote:
"Tynk" wrote in message
ups.com...
I can't wait until I won't have to wear this collar anymore. It drives
me nuts and I hate anything to rest on the front of my neck. I get a
choking feeling if something is touching it (I can't wear turtle necks
because of this) and it's taking a lot of getting used to.
==================
Sorry I'm not familiar with your case. Did you injure your neck? A fall?
Auto accident?

Also, if you see or get a RUDE or insane reply from a Koi-Lo (or any other
name) - the TROLL uses my NYMS all the time to fool people. Check the
headers if you know what they are. He also uses anonymous remailers to
cause more confusion.

TROLL: NNTP-Posting-Host: 71.248.216.185 = Verizon Internet Services/Qwest
NetRange: 71.240.0.0 - 71.255.255.255

My NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.82.117.224 = Hughes Network Systems/Direcway
NetRange: 66.82.0.0 - 66.82.255.255

Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/h/shastadaisy
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

Sorry I'm not familiar with your case. Did you injure your neck? A fall?
Auto accident?

Auto accident. 1st one was in 1994. An old lady turned left in front of
me from the right lane, and baam! That injured my neck in the first
place. Had neck probs for many years. By 2004, the pain flare ups from
that accident were nothing more than an Advil wouldn't take care of.
Then in April of 04, an idiot kid turned left (oncoming) as I was
already in the middle fo the intersection. It was a 45mph limit and was
doing so. I drove a full size van and he drove a 94 Cougar XR7. Hoods
look like ramps...welll...my van went up and over...flew a little bit
and them came crashing down. I was able to get it over to the side of
the road and check on my daughter. She was fine..never saw it coming so
didn't tense up. We all wear our seatbelts, thank goodness. She only
suffered a rub burn from the belt and was just shaken up. I had
numbness and tingles right away in both arms and hands.
It turned out that this accident made the previous damage worse, and I
had severe pain and tingles, numbness for a while. Therapy worked
wonders and a few months later I felt great. Few more months passed by
and then I had a typical pain flare up, just like from the first
accident, only much more painful. I thought the others were bad,
sheesh!
That lasted for a week. A few more months go by and then another flare
up...this one was more intense and lasted for 1 1/2 weeks. Again, a few
more months pass and I get a 3rd flare up. This was the worst I had had
and went back to the doc. Another MRI showed no rupture, so he sent me
back to therapy since it helped so much before. Went through the same
things, with the same therapists. I wasn't getting better this time,
but got worse.
Then they got a new therapist in and she had me doing something with my
arms straight out in front of me. This puts strain right where all my
pain was. Hold your arms straight out for a minute...you'll feel it
right where the bottom of your neck meets your shoulders. That's where
my pain was. I did what I was told and all of a sudden the pain got a
lot worse and I stopped. They stopped wroking me and put heating pads
on me. It turned out that when the disk ruptured. Just nobody knew it
then. Within a couple days the pain was so severe (and I was on a major
pain killer and muscle relaxer) and I was having muscle cramps like
you've never had in your life from my neck, across the left shoulder,
down my left arm all the way into my hand. I also started to lose the
use of my left arm. It got so weak, as well as painful that I couldn't
stand it. I was like this for a total of 4 1/2 weeks before I had the
first neck surgery.
During this period the head therapist took over me and saw these
symptoms weren't anything that could be helped by therapy and told me I
need a new Doc, a Neorosurgeon.
Not trusting the family Doc now because he should have seen this was
what the problem was in the first place (herniated disk...because the
symptoms I was having are classic for a herniated or ruptured disk), I
asked the therapist to help me find a good one.
He talked with his Doctor buddies and therapists and called me up (I
was bed ridden by this time, in an insane amount of pain. My 39 hour
hard labor with my son was a breeze, that's how bad it was) and said
he's got a Doc they call the Miracle man..the man the Doc's go to to
get fixed.
Another new MRI (damn they cost a pretty penny even with insurance)
showed I had a huge rupture.
I needed a diskectomy right away. After surgery the Doc ( best in the
Chicagoland area for many years and has been practicing for 30+ yrs)
said it was the largest rupture he had seen. That's why I was in so
much pain. The larger the rupture, the more pain.
After that was over and done with and all healing over I never felt
better.
Then, a few months after doing wonderful and getting back to normal
life I woke up with symptoms again. Crap!
Another MRI showed it had re-ruptured. Something that never happens in
the cervical spine. Doc said there's only a 1-2% chance of a cervical
re-rupture. Once again I was one in a million. I really hate that. = /
Now, because he already went through the back for the first operation,
he had to go through the front and do a cervial fusion. The difference
between the 2 operations is that with the first one, he took out the
disk material that oozed out and was pushing on my nerve root (causes
the pain and other symptoms) and then rebuilt the disk wall. Because
the rupture was so large, the wall couldn't hold and it ruptured again.
Neither me nor the Doc did anything wrong, it was just one of those
things.
With this operation he had to remove the entire disk and then harvest
bone from my hip (I could have used doner bone, but that comes from
dead people..eeewww), and put the bone graft in place where the disk
was. That bone fuses with the vertabrae over a couple months time.
There are things I won't ever be able to do for the rest of my life
too.
No more roller coasters! = (
No more any carnival rides, or anything like that.
I have always wanted to take a ride on an F18....well there goes that.
G force would pop it above and below the fusion.
Doc says I can ride horses still......lol, but he doesn't know how I
ride. I guess I'd have to take it easy when I do. No more working the
horses that need attitude adjustments. Oh well.
Of course lifting heavy objects will be out, etc. So I'll just have to
be careful and use common sense.