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Greetings! I sure do appreciate all the wonderful posts on this board. I have tried to register numerous times since September but kept getting error messages. Finally emailed the Scoliosis Foundation and they activated my account.
I was diagnosed with Scoliosis when I was 15 in 1974 but was told I was too old for surgery. I did exercises for a couple months and then that was the end of treatment.
Some years later I married and bore six children over the next 15 years with no problems from my scoliosis, aside from needing to wear a good support belt with my fourth and fifth pregnancies.
Fast forward to 2005 when I became sole caregiver of my father-in-law who had Alzheimer's Disease. The three years he lived in our home required a lot of bending and lifting for me and that really damaged my spine. I had months of physical therapy on three different occasions over the next 6 years and kept my core strong. Even so, that did not prevent further injury. My curves were 43 and 48 degrees.
This past July, at age 53, I injured my spine while doing household chores. I lost half an inch in height that day. The pain was bad enough that I looked up a surgeon online and found Dr Hey in Raleigh, NC, whose office is just 20 minutes from where I live. I was so thankful for that! The diagnosis was Degenerative Scoliosis, Idiopathic Scoliosis, Spondylolisthesis, lumbar and lumbar spinal stenosis.
You can see part of my MRI from that appointment on my blog: http://allsparkledup.com/2012/09/27/.../scoliosismri/
I had surgery on October 2nd. I had never had a surgery before so I had no idea what to expect. Dr Hey did a fantastic job on my spine. I'm so thankful that I just happen to live in the right place at the right time. And my husband has good insurance this year so I feel God is watching out for me.
The procedure was:
Thoracic tree to iliac wing instrumentation and fusion using Pioneer variable angel titanium pedicle screws with posterior fusion using local bone graft mixed with Pioneer NanOss and FiberWire technique at T3. L4 laminectomy with foraminotomy. Triple-rod technique from S1 to L3 for lower spinal reinforcement using truss construction.
It wasn't as bad as I thought but the recovery has been quite hard. I naively thought I would be up and about in just 3 weeks. I am now 8 weeks post-op. My husband and sons have noted steady improvement but I haven't felt like I was getting better until just the past two weeks.
For pain, I was on Oxycodone for about five weeks and transitioned to Hydrocodone. After a bout of vertigo, I panicked and quit taking it cold-turkey. I was down to 3 or 4 pills a day so figured I wouldn't have any withdrawal effects. Not so. It was over the extended Thanksgiving holiday and I was quite miserable. I barely slept more than 4 hours per day for almost a week. Finally called Dr Hey's office and now I'm on Tramadol. I'm trying to keep the dose low because I don't want to endure another grueling withdrawal so I'm taking only about 3 or 4 half-pills a day. I mentioned that I hoped I wasn't whiny about my pain issue but was told I am way ahead of the game, especially since my surgery was "very, very extensive", from my neck all the way to my pelvis.
I've been spending many hours reading posts on this forum, finding answers to my questions as I recover. Thank you to all the people here who are so generous with their knowledge and experience! You have been truly my biggest support group the past two months and you didn't even know it. Thank you from my heart!
Julia
I was diagnosed with Scoliosis when I was 15 in 1974 but was told I was too old for surgery. I did exercises for a couple months and then that was the end of treatment.
Some years later I married and bore six children over the next 15 years with no problems from my scoliosis, aside from needing to wear a good support belt with my fourth and fifth pregnancies.
Fast forward to 2005 when I became sole caregiver of my father-in-law who had Alzheimer's Disease. The three years he lived in our home required a lot of bending and lifting for me and that really damaged my spine. I had months of physical therapy on three different occasions over the next 6 years and kept my core strong. Even so, that did not prevent further injury. My curves were 43 and 48 degrees.
This past July, at age 53, I injured my spine while doing household chores. I lost half an inch in height that day. The pain was bad enough that I looked up a surgeon online and found Dr Hey in Raleigh, NC, whose office is just 20 minutes from where I live. I was so thankful for that! The diagnosis was Degenerative Scoliosis, Idiopathic Scoliosis, Spondylolisthesis, lumbar and lumbar spinal stenosis.
You can see part of my MRI from that appointment on my blog: http://allsparkledup.com/2012/09/27/.../scoliosismri/
I had surgery on October 2nd. I had never had a surgery before so I had no idea what to expect. Dr Hey did a fantastic job on my spine. I'm so thankful that I just happen to live in the right place at the right time. And my husband has good insurance this year so I feel God is watching out for me.
The procedure was:
Thoracic tree to iliac wing instrumentation and fusion using Pioneer variable angel titanium pedicle screws with posterior fusion using local bone graft mixed with Pioneer NanOss and FiberWire technique at T3. L4 laminectomy with foraminotomy. Triple-rod technique from S1 to L3 for lower spinal reinforcement using truss construction.
It wasn't as bad as I thought but the recovery has been quite hard. I naively thought I would be up and about in just 3 weeks. I am now 8 weeks post-op. My husband and sons have noted steady improvement but I haven't felt like I was getting better until just the past two weeks.
For pain, I was on Oxycodone for about five weeks and transitioned to Hydrocodone. After a bout of vertigo, I panicked and quit taking it cold-turkey. I was down to 3 or 4 pills a day so figured I wouldn't have any withdrawal effects. Not so. It was over the extended Thanksgiving holiday and I was quite miserable. I barely slept more than 4 hours per day for almost a week. Finally called Dr Hey's office and now I'm on Tramadol. I'm trying to keep the dose low because I don't want to endure another grueling withdrawal so I'm taking only about 3 or 4 half-pills a day. I mentioned that I hoped I wasn't whiny about my pain issue but was told I am way ahead of the game, especially since my surgery was "very, very extensive", from my neck all the way to my pelvis.
I've been spending many hours reading posts on this forum, finding answers to my questions as I recover. Thank you to all the people here who are so generous with their knowledge and experience! You have been truly my biggest support group the past two months and you didn't even know it. Thank you from my heart!
Julia
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