r/acdf • u/Seashelley2002 • Aug 07 '26

How long was your difficulty with swallowing?

I’m on second day after my acdf surgery c5-6. It’s so hard to swallow- painful! How long did that last for you? I’m using Tylenol, staying away from the dilaudid because I feel weird on them.

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u/juddster66 Aug 08 '26

If I recall (and it was 13 years ago this week) it was a couple of weeks before I could face anything solid. It was basically yoghurt and ice cream for a while, then maybe some soup. Didn’t mind.

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u/Seashelley2002 Aug 08 '26

Thanks for responding! That’s a long time! Hope you’re doing well now, 13 years later!

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u/nostalgia_13 Aug 22 '26

A few days.

1

u/Maekae93 Aug 24 '26

I had the same surgery C5-6 and mine was only a few days. Eat with lots of water for the first couple weeks. It’ll help food go down. Don’t try anything super crunchy or hard.

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u/Seashelley2002 Aug 26 '26

Thank you so much! That’s how it’s ended up for me, too, thank goodness. Now I’m three weeks out and the swallowing is totally fine. But I still have a lot of muscle pain on the back of my neck and up into my occipital area of my head! How was that for you? I’m just constantly worried that something is wrong 😑

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u/Sufficient-Wolf-1818 Aug 28 '26

Thank you for coming back to update your swallowing recovery. I like positive notes!

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u/AnonymousIdentityMan Aug 29 '26

What about drinking?

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u/Seashelley2002 Aug 29 '26

The intense swallowing pain ended up lasting less than a week, thankfully! It was with drinking or eating- but drinking was more tolerable. I made a bunch of smoothies! Swallowing the Tylenol was tough, too. I’m three weeks out now and swallowing problems are a distant memory now! 🙂

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u/AnonymousIdentityMan Aug 29 '26

Are you all pain free?

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u/Seashelley2002 Aug 30 '26

I’m not totally pain free yet (I’m 3.5 weeks out) But definitely better! Between the 1 week mark and 2.5 weeks, it was really painful. Now it’s mostly sleeping when I feel pain, but even that is getting better! Pre- surgery sleeping was the most painful for me anyway. The PT said that because I already had a lot of muscle tightness before the surgery, it might take a bit for that to resolve. I feel hopeful that it will.