I did it!!

[yacpatty]

I did it

Hello Scoliosis Hero...wow, 74, and you are doing this great. How encouraging for this 61 year old looking at Dec 11 for surgery with Dr. Bridwell. Please keep us posted as to how you are doing. I have a question and hope you see this. Are you fused to the sacrum? That is one of the options I am looking at in addition to a selective fusion. Continued wishes for that speedy recovery.
Patty from Pennsylvania

[JenniferG]

"-Has any one else had acid reflux after surgery. I've NEVER experienced Acid reflux before and it sucks. And I get like bubbles in my throat, and its hard to swallow... weird. "

I am not sure if it's acid reflux, but I never had indigestion in my life until my surgery. I got the first bout a few days out from surgery and Mylanta fixed it. I'm now 3.5 years and I still get it occasionally, though not since I had my gallbladder removed about 5 weeks ago. So perhaps that was to do with my gallstones?

But I do still get that bubble in my throat especially when I eat meat which seems to get "stuck" and can hurt quite a lot. I tend to need to chew longer and have smaller bites of meat, but how or if this relates to my scoli surgery, I have no idea. I just know I never had anything like this prior to my surgery.

[titaniumed]

The meds sure do a great job at producing acids....I took Zantac to put the fire out. It lasts 12 hours. I also will eat granola dry right before I go to bed to help with acids....depending on fat intake since fats can be hard to digest. Hamburger and cheese’s being one of the worst and usually I try to avoid....sometimes I cant help it.

Weaning at a steady rate seems to make sense. Keep notes, write it all down. At the last scoli meeting at UCSF, weaning rates were discussed and a 20% reduction of any med would not produce withdrawl. That’s 5 weeks total, for any med. I listened intently since my neighbor cannot get off Paxil. One of the hardest medications to quit.

After a few weeks you will realize how nasty these meds really are. It seems that many post at around the 5 week mark asking “how do I get off this stuff”?

You are way too early to judge your lumbar results. It seemed that I had an over-correction in my shoulders with my left shoulder being higher than my right, but after many months they evened out. It just takes time. Your soft tissues have to recover.....

Try not to be to antsy...take things one day at a time. Recovery is not a rush scenario, it will happen when it happens at its own rate.

Easy peasy....slow and easy. It generally takes 12 months for fusion to occur....

Ed