Cervical arthritis

[itself]

So fusion vs disc replacement? There seems to be those choices.

[luvmyguys]

I had a herniated disc in February and March of this year, and I had a conservative surgery where the herniated parts of the disc were removed, but the rest of the disc was left in place. Prior to that, I was under the care of a chiropractor (she's the one who sent me who ordered the MRI and sent me to the neurosurgeon) who tried spinal decompression to alleviate the problem. Since I knew we were dealing with something nasty, I got a second opinion from an orthopedic surgeon, who agreed with what the chiropractor was doing (no manual adjustments, but the spinal decompression was fine). The spinal decompression alleviated the pain significantly, but my disc was too messed up to be corrected without surgery - the MRI showed a 9 mm disc protrusion and the neurosurgeon said he took out multiple fragments. The pain was gone, but my arm was still weak and I still had persistent numbness in my index finger.

My husband was having issues with some arm weakness, and this chiropractor was able to correct the problem with the spinal decompression. It might be something you can look into as a last resort prior to surgery.

The advice that I was given in several places was to avoid hardware (plates and screws) if at all possible, if a fusion is recommended.