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Background story: A few months ago, I underwent lasik to get my vision corrected. This was cosmetic. In 2019, I did 3 surgeries in 1 admission, it’s the septoplasty, tonsillectomy and sinus surgery - this was elective, but life changing and I don’t have breathing problems anymore.
Last year, I was also hospitalised for a viral fever (not Covid). So I was hoping that’s the end of my medical woes, and I didn’t want to be the guy with the highest claims among my colleagues.
So what happened now? In late-February to early-March this year, I felt shoulder pain after waking up. This has happened before but it went away on its own, so I didn’t bother to get it checked.
- Seeking treatment: After more than a month, it still did not go away, and the pain got even worse. Because it’s shoulder pain, I guessed that I should see the orthopaedic doctor. I asked my boss to recommend me a doctor so I visited Dr Manmohan. He asked me the right questions and I think he figured what the problem was. X-ray and MRI scans were done to confirm the diagnosis, it was herniated discs (also known as slipped disc) at two levels C4/C5 and C5/C6. The letter “C” indicates that it’s at the neck.
- Cause of herniated disc: Uncertain, according to the doctor, this has developed over many years. It could have been caused by an accident, or could also be just genes. I don’t remember having an accident, so it could be genes.
- Surgery: We scheduled for surgery a week later, I got my GL approved a few days later and was admitted with no hassle. I had to fast (no food/liquid) from midnight, admitted at 8am, surgery at around 3pm and woke up at 8pm. I immediately noticed that the shoulder pain was gone, meaning the diagnosis was correct. I was very hungry and ordered food delivery. Swallowing felt weird as the doctor had to move my oesophagus aside to reach the neck part of the spine and do the surgery. I only felt slight discomfort when swallowing, but I’ve noted from other ACDF recovery stories on youtube that some people felt pain swallowing for the first few days after surgery.
- Recovery: so the F in ACDF stands for fusion, it means that my 2 levels will now become one through bone growth. There’s no additional medication for this, it will occur naturally as the doctor has put a bracket with screws to hold the affected cervical spine in place until the fusion is complete. Doc has encouraged me to move my head as normal, but it feels awkward for 2 reasons: first, I was just afraid if any wrong movement can snap my neck (this won’t actually happen), second, as the disc spacings are now corrected, I’ve actually increased in height by 1cm, that makes the neck muscles abit tense while it adjusts to the new posture.
- How do I feel now? Surgery was on 22nd April, and it’s 5th June today. I feel good. One can resume jogging after 6 weeks, and weight training after 3 months.
p/s the bill was RM 65K:
Cheers! - wan
Left: after, Right: before