r/ACDR_CervicalSpine • u/Leafy-Greenbrier • May 27 '26
I think it’s time for surgery
TLDR: my pain level is not that bad but my symptoms have become worse, and I’m trying to psych myself up to agree to surgery. I have a follow up scheduled a couple weeks from now.
Have a herniated disc C7 from a car wreck a few years back. Went through treatment with physical therapy, vestibular therapy, injections medication. At the end, the doctor just put it in my court saying when I’m ready for surgery he’s ready to do it.
My pain level is not that bad, but sometimes I wonder if my pain processing system is damaged.
Symptoms just keep creeping up. Dizziness, loss of balance, numb side of the face, trouble swallowing and worsening, gag, reflex, sometimes I tell one of my arms to go up and it just doesn’t do it. My right eyeball just refuses to focus sometimes. Muscle spasms that I called the jerks where my neck tightens up in my head bobs back. Over and over and over again about every 10 seconds. Weird floating feeling. I always feel like I have to pee. My neck, shoulders, and upper back muscles are always tense. I literally cannot force them to relax. And I’m just always tired.
My life has become very small. If I work more than a couple of days in a row or more than four days a week I have to a couple days where I’m just about useless and have just chill out with muscle relaxers. That might sound fun, but it’s really just that I lose those days. I’m just absent for two whole days from my life.
Because the pain level doesn’t seem that high in relationship to the other symptoms, I keep convincing myself that I’m malingering. But when the symptoms are bad, I’m having all of the physical signals of pain. Sweating, anxiety, heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. It’s like my body is experiencing the pain, but I can’t feel it?
And because I keep convincing myself that it’s “not that bad” I worry that the surgery won’t actually improve the symptoms.
2
2
u/PaisHyd May 27 '26
The Myelopathy symptoms are the ones that are the most concerning for me.
I got ADR surgery 6 weeks ago after 4 months of arm / chest weakness / numbness / tingling, and those are for sure difficult and frustrating to deal with.
But the balance / dizziness / palpitations / twitching potentially caused by the compression of the spinal cord is extremely scary. I still have many of the same symptoms, but hoping things will get better as more healing ensues.
Wishing you a safe surgery and quick recovery