Cervical Fusion

Incessant pain, numbness, or tingling in your neck and arms can be greatly debilitating, especially if your movement is severely restrained. Whiplash endured in a severe car accident can cause this type of pain. If the pain does not go away and other treatment options fail to improve the situation, you may be a candidate for cervical fusion.

To understand how cervical fusion can help you and eliminate your pain, it is essential to understand the basic parts of the spinal column and how spinal cord injuries occur. The spinal column is made up of 24 vertebrae or small circular pieces of bone that line up, one on top of the other. The different sections of the column are given specific names to help identification. The uppermost vertebrae are called the cervical vertebrae and are found in the neck. In between each vertebra is a cushiony disc that absorbs shock and keeps the bones separated from each other. In the back of each of the vertebrae is a small hole, called the foramina which allows the nerve column known as the spinal cord to run through, protected from outside forces.

When these discs are damaged, the bones rub against each other and against the many nerves in the spine, all which cause severe pain along with other symptoms such as numbness, tingling, burning, or pins and needles. If a patient suffers an injury that damages the back or neck, these discs can become pushed out of place. These injuries can occur suddenly, like with an auto accident, or over time, like with repetitive stress. This is often painful because the discs cannot do their job of cushioning the bones if they are out of position. This can also occur naturally over time as the liquid-filled discs become dehydrated and less inflated, this is called degeneration.

Loss of disc space, or the discs being moved puts the vertebrae in dangerously close proximity to each other. Occasionally, the encasement of the disc ruptures and the disc is no longer useful. Another possibility for pain is the development of bone spurs. These are sharp pieces of bone that grow off the vertebrae and themselves rub the other bone or aggravate the nerves. Any of these problems could be caused by a traumatic event, such as a car accident. When conservative treatment is exhausted these complaints may be resolved by cervical fusion.

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To relieve the pain, a surgeon creates a small incision in the patient’s neck, just under the chin. He then would remove the disc that is causing problems, usually because it has ruptured. A piece of bone or an implant is then inserted to fill the space that the disc once occupied, so that the height of the spinal column and the distance between vertebrae remains the same. This piece of bone either comes from the patient’s hip bone, the iliac crest, or a bone bank. Both options have their benefits and obstacles. The fusion of the bones is slightly more successful in cases of an autogeneous bone graft (coming from the patient’s own body). However, this requires an additional step to the surgical process of harvesting your donor bone from another site on your body, usually your hip, resulting in more pain and recovery time. An allograft (a piece of bone from a bone bank) reduces the healing time, but might not fuse as well with the other bones. If all goes correctly, the bones will fuse together into one larger piece of bone, reducing the possibility of painful situations because the bones can no longer rub together or pinch the nerves.

Unfortunately, when a cervical fusion is performed it places additional stress on the vertebrae above and below the surgery site. This makes it significantly more likely that the person will need another surgery, either a discectomy, a laminectomy, or another fusion at one of those levels.

This information is provided by www.straighttalklaw.com, where you can order free books on Washington auto accidents, auto insurance, and other valuable legal information, offered as a public service by Jason Epstein and his law practice Premiere Law Group in Seattle, Washington.

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