hi Neil
well i was rushed in to hospital with this and when they took the mri scan they said i could have been paralysed ??, urgent
i think in their words that mean we will get to you when we can, i have had the pre op tests, the blood tests, the x rays, the injection of a blue die to show the nerves etc around the carotid artery, barium meal to show the oesophagus and wind pipe, electrical nerve tests(4,000 volts at very very low amps) makes your hand and arms do things you can't.
told that it would be 3 to 6 weeks as the damage is from c4 to c8, lost 2 stone in weight and have a left arm like some school boy due to the injury, shoulder pain that's like having a knife in the neck shoulder blade and chest.
just beginning to drag me down a bit, then they hit you with the tests,
what the fook do they think i can do in that state, and that's just the physical never mind the mental side of it.
bob.
I know how you feel Bob, I got the run around for years for this, had all the same tests, along with a few more.
I wish I had had the tests you had in the same order, as they tried all the simple ones first, which is why I had carpal tunnel syndrome relief surgery on both wrists first.
The right wrist twice as they buggered it up, so had to have it done again to remove all the scar tissue the first opp left.
That was all over with 3.5 years ago, pity none of it worked, which is why I then had even more tests, the ones that showed the spinal damage. I chose to only have the worst one (C6/C7) done, coming up for 2 years ago sort of as test ride
Although I recovered well I am still missing some movement, I would not want to lose any more, so have decided to leave it as it is for the foreseeable future, fingers crossed.
I still have permanent pain that will not go away, it still stops me doing a few thing, including most shotgunning as high birds are just not possible.
I am also suffering pain in my left arm now, strength is failing and it is permanently aching, along with cramp like pain in the upper arm if I do too much.
This is an exact rerun of the problems I had in my right arm, first symptoms appeared about 16 years ago, 9 years ago it was so bad I lost my job as I could no longer come even close to working a full day, let alone a full week. I then waited another year for surgery (a simple reshape and smoothing of the outer end of my collar bone, to stop the eroded bone damaging the muscle) by which time the damage was so bad it took 3 years to get full use (but limited strength) back, at about that time the other problems started.
All I hope now is they don't waste another few years before deciding to operate.
So yes I feel for you, never easy or straight forward is it mate.
Neil.