Do not let your neck and back pain agonize you!

Farida Yasmin at forty seven runs her own khadi cloth shop in Comilla with her husband. Farida did have some niggling pain in her neck for few weeks, but suddenly one morning she felt severe neck pain with absolute immobility. A local doctor in Comilla advised her to go to Dhaka for better treatment. She had neck surgery in a big private hospital in Dhaka; but unfortunately even after two weeks passed after the surgery there was no improvement in her condition!

In desperation, when Farida came to see the Spine Surgeon in an International Standard Tertiary Care Hospital in Dhaka itself, she was having difficulty in speaking, drinking water and swallowing food having obstruction in her neck; further she was having tingling sensation and pain which was radiating from her neck to her shoulder, arm and hands. The Spine Surgeon diagnosed her to be a case of Cervical Radiculopathy which resulted from implant failure in cervical spine from her previous surgery for Cervical Herniated Disc.

Neck part of our spine is called cervical spine. Any condition that injures or somehow irritates the cervical nerve can cause Cervical Radiculopathy. The most common causes of Cervical Radiculopathy include:

                . Cervical Herniated Disc when the inner material of the cervical disc herniates or leaks out and                  inflames and/or impinges on the adjacent nerve.

                . Cervical Spinal Stenosis where as part of the degenerative process of the cervical spine,                             changes in the spinal joints can lead to tightening of the space for the spinal canal.

                . Cervical Degenerative Disc Disease when the cervical spine degenerates over time resulting in                                degenerated discs and a pinched nerve.

The Spine Surgeon explained to Farida her condition by drawing picture of spine. He told her, arm pain from a cervical herniated disc is one of the more common cervical spine conditions which usually develop in thirty to fifty year old age group. The doctor further said that although a cervical herniated disc may originate from some sort of trauma or injury to the cervical spine, the symptoms commonly start spontaneously. The herniated disc material presses on a cervical nerve, causing pain to radiate along the nerve pathway down the arm. Along with arm pain and muscle weakness, numbness and tingling can be present down the arm and into the fingertips.

X-ray of Farida’s cervical spine revealed implant failure of cervical plate from previous surgery which was putting an obstruction for her to swallow food and water. “Unfortunately the previous surgery at other hospital was a failure and I advised her for a surgery here without any delay”, said the Spine Surgeon.

The Spine Surgeon removed the cervical plate from previous surgery; then the surgeon did ‘corpectomy’ which means removal of a cervical vertebral body, after which fixation of the cervical spine was done using a cage and cervical plate. With an uneventful post operative stay, all signs and symptoms subsided in Farida as was evident in her follow up visits. Farida Yasmin, in a train going back to her home in Comilla, is now a happy person free from neck pain with restored normal function of arms and hands.

Why let your neck and back pain agonize you, when you have an International Standard hospital in the country with expert and skilled Spine Surgeon?