Anterior Cervical Discectomy with Fusion (ACDF) recovery

I also had cadaver bone plaed in a casing to replace three of the discs they removed......It has been ten days and I in tremendous pain, any suggestiions?

muscle relaxers and oxycontin. i say stretch it to your ability and be mobile. the more you sit around, the slower it heals. or call your surgeon- don't you have a follow up appt?

I am two weeks post op from acdf. All of my pain is gone and i stayed 1 night in the hospital. I was back to work in 4 days. But i hate the collar which I must wear for 6-8 weeks. I have had no post operative pain. It is just hard to sleep, so i have been taking ambien. i only neede about 5 pain pills all together and mostly to help me sleep. I can now ride a stationary bike and walk a ton. I am hoping for a full recovery and plan onkeeping the brace on to allow the fusion to grab hold. I used a donor graft and had levls c4,5,6 fused. My doc is ortho spine and he was fantastic. i had my procedure done at El Camino hospital of los gatos and the staff was great. No bill yet...that may require coronary treatment. But thaanks dr r.s for a great job

I had c6-c7 diskectomy with fusion done in 1992. I had a fall doing construction work. Splattered my disk. 20 years later my neck has reasonable range of motion. I do 4-6 minute headstands daily. I attribute in large part my very successful recovery to the fact I returned to my daily 6-10 mile running routine within weeks. I returned to construction and even when I became the boss still did the physically demanding work. I still run daily and within the last year returned to the 6-10 mile daily run, though I kept running daily at lower mileage many years in the last 20.

I had a lot of initial pain after the ACDF. It was unpleasant, no fun. I had pain for years afterwards doing certain kinds of work, in particular working with my arms over my head, though that's not been a real issue for many years. I to this day will get a sudden feeling of having someone stick needles in my pointing and middle finger of my right hand, where the original intense pain was located at as the medial (I think) nerve to my arm, as it's leaving the vertabrae gets pinched, usually after I 've done extra strenuous construction work.

So-- all this to say--- get the surgery if your situation sounds similar to mine. Be ready to deal with pain. There's just no way someone is going to use a knife on you and you not feel the after effects for a while, with remanents of pain lingering around maybe the rest of your life.

The question: was the surgery worth it? In my case, absolutely. I'd have become paralyzed in my right arm without the surgery. It's a tough call, trying to see into the future. In my case, what could have left me unemployed doing what I love doing, building houses, left very little negative effects. So, good luck with yours.

 

  

 

I had ACDF - c6 work done but had a solid “cage” (which is a small matchbox like structure aimed at preserving the height of the disc space after it has been removed hence it is sometimes called a “disc spacer”) . This cage is usually filled with your own bone pieces and/or some other material to promote fusion, in January 2012 in a private hospital but through the NHS (UK).  I've been relatively pain free apart from my muscles around my neck and shoulder going into spasm a couple of times and given pain killers and sent home!  I'm currently (August 2012) in pain again, my neck, shoulders and back are very sore and painful and my local hospital gave me lots of differnet painkillers and morphine all of which haven't even touched the pain!

Trying to get to see my consultant is nearly impossible!  No one seems to be able to give me any real answers as to why I'm still in pain - ranging from 'it can take upto 18 months for everything to calm down', to I'm doing too much at work, to you've had a major operation what do you expect!  No one will do a scan to see whats happening, so I'm just left in pain not knowing what to do and close to losing my job!

Part of me wishes I'd not gone ahead with it, the numbness and arm pain were less painful than what I'm now getting in my neck, shoulders and back!

Anyone thinking of this type of surgery, in my opinion, need to really look into the pros and cons of the op, something I never did and ask many many questions, again something I didn't do too much of.

Good luck

Hi, I'm new to this site. I just had acdf 4 days ago. c4/5 and c5/6. First few days have been rough . I've been dealing with pain and weakness in my neck, arm , and hand for 4 years off and on and finally decided on surgery. After reading the posts it is upsetting that so many people are still suffering after thier surgery. I'm sure each situation is unique. I am hopefull that I will look back and know that I made the right decision. Right now the biggest problem I am having is swallowing.

I am now 2 weeks post op from a c6/c7 fusion. I had immediate relief from the pain upon waking up. The only problems I have had are some muscle spasms which have been controlled by a muscle relaxer and an over all feeling of tiredness. I am 51 yrs old so I guess it just takes a little more time to get over a major surgery than it used to. I have been walking since day 2 and my Dr. never had a brace or collar on me and encouraged me to turn my head from side to side at increasing stages. I am now back at work for 6 hours a day and am driving with Dr's approval. Just make sure you take your time and follow your Dr's orders. I am thankful I chose to go ahead and have the surgery as i was at the end of the road.

I'm 2 weeks 3 days post op and I feel great. Glad I got it done. I don't have to wear my soft collar anymore and my scar looks awesome.

My pain was a 8 or 9 everyday since the car accident in February. I only feelshe old pain on a minor scale if I overdo it. But it subsides once I rest. I'm taking a lot less meds and I almost feel like a normal person again. Just catching up on a lot of rest I missed from the many nights pain kept me awake. I had almost let the post on here scare me out of having the surgery.

I am having the ACDF surgery in a few weeks.  I was in a car accident in 1987 and was told I had whiplash with a permanent injury.  The last 3 years I have had the tingling-numbness in both arms-hands and now legs, with some pain in upper left arm.  My neck hurts, if I turn my head a certain way I have an instant migraine headache or extreme head pain. Also, when my neck hurts and spasms my neck and hands will shake.   At first they told me I had arthritis in my neck and when inflamed it caused me to have pinched nerves.  I had the steroid shots in my neck 4 times and the last time made my migraines 3x as bad.  I have migraines and excruciating head pain depending on the position of my neck-head. 

My Ortho who came highly recommended and has performed thousands of these surgeries without every being sued etc..    told me he has only seen one other case as bad as mine.  The other case was successful - an op room nurse.    I need 3 discs replaced - c4-c5, c5-c6, and c6-c7.  They will use the cage method, fill with granules that turn into bone and fuss.   I will wear a collar for 2 weeks and can return to work in 4 - 6 weeks - I have a desk job with walking and lots of air travel.  I'm not to lift anything over 10 pounds over my head for 3 months.  I should be totally healed by the 3 month mark.  I will have limited range of motion -exactly how much I don't know.    I am in the 70% success rate category because it's so bad.  If I fall into the 30% I could have extreme pain down my left arm. 

I am so sick of taking all the drugs daily for my neck pain that causes me to have extreme headaches-migraines, sometimes 3 to 4 times day taking neurotin and tramidol to get rid of them.  I used to eat a bottle of 50 tylenol in a week for the headaches.  I've dealt with the headaches for years but the numbess etc only began about 3 yrs ago.  Anyway, I'm scared.  I'm sick to death of the neck-head pain-headaches-migrains.  I'm sick of eating the pills -I hate pills to begin with.... But I'm also scared I will be in the failure category. 

Advice please!   Anyone else been in this situation?

I should also add that these discs are pressing against my spinal cord.

My shoulder muscles has been tight ever since the car accident; folks that massage my neck are like you're like rocks.. I'm just used to it. I had the steroid shots in those muscles too and it did nothing for it.

Hi, I posted earlier re my c6 and that I'm still having trouble and pain and that I'm close to losing my job because of it. I've since been told that the pain is muscles in and around my neck and back that are not used to my neck being so straight after being curved with the disc protruding out. The muscles are thinking 'what the....' and are going into spasm. I've since been getting lower back pain and pain in the top of my leg, this could be due to the neck muscle spasm but they are now thinking it could be something else in my lower back that is causing this pain! I must admit to being very depressed and after reading your problems I feel like theres nothing wrong with me to what you're going through. Please do not worry about the surgery, most people are cured and its just a few that still have pain afterwards - me being one. I've been told that it will settle down, the xrays I've now had show that everything is ahead of schedule and its just down to my muscles. I start some sort of neck manipulation in the next few weeks, this should calm the muscles down and my life will be back on track. My heart goes out to you but I feel that you will notice a huge difference once you have the surgery. My initial pain down my left arm and numbness has gone, thankfully as this was extreme at times, although my muscle spasms are also very painful. Go into the operation with good positive thoughts of no pain when you come around after the surgery. I will be thinking of you. Sorry if I'm rambling a bit. Good luck

My post above is for AmyTur

Andy thank you so much for your words of encouragement. I truly feel for u; what uv been dealing with is horrible with the fear of losing ur job. Which I'm sure only added to your stress level. Please continue to let me know of ur progress. Sorry sending from my mobile in case of typos.

Hi! I'm having surgery soon, scared because I here so many different story's, wish I had more definite answers, can anyone tell me how long I will be off work, with a very physical. Job with a lot of lifting? Doc says 6 weeks, is that really long enough?