Discussions that mention celebrex

Spinal Cord Disorders board

Has anyone had elective ACDF or any similar surgery to fuse the cervical spine in order to eliminate pain of AS. I was diagnosed with AS some 12 years ago but I thought it was confined to my peripheral joints until recently. I was having a great deal of pain for approx. a year in my left arm along with limited range of motion. Went to Ortho who did xray of left shoulder and discovered bone spurs, one very large. Had Arthro surgery 4/6/04 to remove bone spurs and did 5 weeks PT. Unfortunately the pain in my left arm got worse and I began having same pain in my right arm.

Back to Ortho who scheduled MRI 6/17/04, results yesterday. His feeling is that nothing can be done and I just have to wait untill my cervical spine fuses naturally. I have foraminal narrowing at C5-6 along with bulging discs etc., etc., etc. The nerve pains in my arm are intense to say the least.

If my spine will eventually fuse naturally and at that point the pain will stop. My ? is, why not have fusion surgery and stop the pain now. I'm taking 200mg Celebrex bid and was taking 7.5mg Percocet qid but the Perc only dulls the pain a little bit because it's nerve pain.

As I emailed my brother this am.
Went to Ortho yesterday for his input on MRI results. He said "Well Mr. & Mrs. R., I have some good news and some bad news and I have some good news and some bad news."
And I said "Is there an echo in here."
He went on, "the good news is you don't have to have surgery. The bad news is that surgery won't help and you just have to stay in pain cause nothing will help (normal pain killers don't help nerve pain)."
And I said "but the hydrocodone does get you high so that you don't give a s**t about the pain."
He continued, "the good news is the pain will stop when your spine naturally fuses from your AS. The bad news is that this usually takes 2 or 3 years and the pain will get a lot worse before it gets better."
And I said "and which part of this again was the good news."

My Ortho also felt that a foraminotomy to take pressure off the nerves would only be temporary in that the bone would grow back causing the same problem.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. I have appt. with Rheumie on Thurs. and one with neurosurgeon on 7/27.