Question about Anterior Cervical Decompression and Fusion

[skb21]

My mother had this procedure done on June 20th, to fuse C4 on C5 and C5 on C6. Today is the 4th day post op. She is currently experiencing some shoulder pain in between her shoulder blades. This was expected though, because the doctor put her on Flexeril post op. She also has some bruising around the surgical site and a good bit of swelling around the surgical site.

How common are these complications? She had C6 on C7 fused a few years ago, and I don't remember her having these symptoms from that case.

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[moquito_17]

My mother had this procedure done on June 20th, to fuse C4 on C5 and C5 on C6. Today is the 4th day post op. She is currently experiencing some shoulder pain in between her shoulder blades. This was expected though, because the doctor put her on Flexeril post op. She also has some bruising around the surgical site and a good bit of swelling around the surgical site.

How common are these complications? She had C6 on C7 fused a few years ago, and I don't remember her having these symptoms from that case.

If your mother has questions, she needs to follow-up with her surgeon and not get your answers here. It is impossible to say anything about her case without seeing her--your description of 'a good bit of swelling' is not sufficient to properly assess her.

But speaking generally, some amount of 'bruising' and 'swelling' is expected as there is usually bleeding into the soft tissues from bone following fracture or procedures (such as fusion). Bone oozes and all that blood stays in the soft tissues and then changes color in the following few days and looks like bruising. Since every case is different with the amount of bone that is manipulated and blood/marrow that oozes into the tissues, this 'bruising' can be a lot or none. Although it may look bad it really doesn't matter much.

Also speaking generally, some swelling is normal. The degree of pain, swelling and nature of the wound are the things that matter when evaluating healing/infection and that is a clinical judgment.

Hope this helps,