fusion

[suzyjay]

My doctor told me that he would fuse me from T4 to the sacrum, possibly to the pelvis. Is anyone here fused to their pelvis or heard of anyone?

Sue

[Cakedec]

There is a thread on it

If you click on Surgical (First-time), you will see the recent threads. Go to the one that says Patients Fused to S-1 by Summer and it has several people who were with info on it for you.

[suzyjay]

Fusing to the pelvis

I went there, but everyone was fused to the sacrum, no mention of fused to the pelvis. I thought sacrum was the pelvis, but my doctor said he would fuse me to my sacrum but he may have to fuse to the pelvis. I never heard of anyone being fused to the pelvis.

[LindaRacine]

Hi Suzy...

There actually have been other discussions, but the Search function here isn't the greatest, so I haven't been able to find anything. Fusion to the pelvis is very similar to fusion to the sacrum, and I think they're practically interchangable. A friend of mine was fused to the sacrum, but actually fractured her sacrum when she bent over within a week of surgery. :-( The surgeon told me that if he'd opted to fuse her to the pelvis (which he ended up having to do anyway), she would not have had the fracture.

If you have access to a medical library, this study might be of interest;

J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2005;87 Suppl 2:89-106.

Pelvic fixation in spine surgery. Historical overview, indications, biomechanical relevance, and current techniques.

Moshirfar A, Rand FF, Sponseller PD, Parazin SJ, Khanna AJ, Kebaish KM, Stinson JT, Riley LH 3rd.
Dept. of Orthopedic Surgery, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, 4940 Eastern Avenue #A672, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA. ehenze1@jhmi.edu

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...=pubmed_docsum

And, in case you're interested in seeing what fixation to the pelvis looks like, here are some photos of xrays:

http://health.ph.groups.yahoo.com/gr.../view/fc41?b=2
http://health.ph.groups.yahoo.com/gr.../view/fc41?b=6
http://health.ph.groups.yahoo.com/gr.../view/a40e?b=1

Regards,
Linda

[suzyjay]

Thanks. I only received two responses here and I search on the web and I couldn't find anything - I guess fusing to the pelvis is not very common.
Thanks again.

[LindaRacine]

Hi Suzy...

I think it's more common in revision surgery than in first time surgery.

Regards,
Linda

[katblack]

This was the only thing I could find on it.
Hope it helps a little bit.

[Kimmy65]

20year post op

Anyone out there who has had Harrington rod and fusion for any length of time??? I have gotten extremely frustrated with the pain. No one I know can truly understand how I am feeling.

[LindaRacine]

Hi Kimmy...

You might want to do a search (icon above) on Harrington. There have been many discussions.

Regards,
Linda