So sorry that you need a 7th surgery. You are not alone! Many patients have a lot of surgeries before finally fusing. (The most I've heard of is 13!). Think about it... a fusion would be a hard sell on the first surgery! Surgeons have to try other things initially such as debridements, microfractures, stem cells, and allografts. A lot of the time these other options work, but for the contingent on this blog, it has not been successful. Most likely, the arthritis would have caught up with you anyway at some point. Something that has helped me during recovery has been to have a benchmark of what I couldn't do prior to fusion and what I can 5 months later. For me that's a short hike that I could not do, or if I could, it would take days to recover from. Now I can do that hike even though I'm still in the recovery stage. It's fabulous for the mind to know that the pain is not as constant or as intense as prior to surgery. Good luck!
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So sorry that you need a 7th surgery. You are not alone! Many patients have a lot of surgeries before finally fusing. (The most I've heard of is 13!). Think about it... a fusion would be a hard sell on the first surgery! Surgeons have to try other things initially such as debridements, microfractures, stem cells, and allografts. A lot of the time these other options work, but for the contingent on this blog, it has not been successful. Most likely, the arthritis would have caught up with you anyway at some point. Something that has helped me during recovery has been to have a benchmark of what I couldn't do prior to fusion and what I can 5 months later. For me that's a short hike that I could not do, or if I could, it would take days to recover from. Now I can do that hike even though I'm still in the recovery stage. It's fabulous for the mind to know that the pain is not as constant or as intense as prior to surgery. Good luck!
January 2, 2015 - 8:14amThis Comment
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