Hi, I had a microdiskectomy in January 2004 on my L5-S1 disk. Everything was going well for a long time, but recently, I started to have upper back pain. It is a burning/aching feeling that goes from my mid/upper back through my neck, shoulders and sometimes I have pains in my arms. Has this happened to anyone else? Is this just part of the recovery? Thanks for your help.
i had the same thing in 2002, but didn't get any of the upper back pain unless I was working. My doc gave me muscle relaxers to take at night to help eleviate some of the upper back discomfort. I carried a lot of stress in my upper body, and surgery does bring on some stress. Do you sit a lot? could def be your posture. You could look into to therapy to get some good exercises to help stretch those muscles. I do have more pain now, but I have other new issues not related to my low back like arthritis in my neck and a bulge.
i had a laminect./disect. in jan. 2004. i found out in may that the surgery
failed. i now have the same mid back pain you explained, plus my arms. I have the same pain in my legs and lower back as i did before the surgery.
I had an MRI done on my upper back but it looked fine. So right now they dont know whats wrong so i dont know what to do. i know i gave no advice to you right there but i really just dont know what it is.
I had a lumbar discetomy on L5-S1 in 1994. I was doing excersises after the surgery when I felt a pop in my thoracic area. The pain came on real strong after the pop. I ended up going to my MD a couple of days later. I was put on the steroid pak for a week and the pain subsided. I had flare ups over the years with it (upper back) but they would last a few days or a week and then go away. I was doing great until August of 2000. I woke up one morning and the pain was very severe in the thoracic area. I thought I was also having a heartattack. I ended up going to 3 different Neuro's and had 4 MRI's, but nothing showed up (no disc buldge ect...) I was put on pain meds and told to learn to live with it. I had this very severe pain for about 5 months and finally one day I noticed it was starting to go away, and I was not grabbing for the pain pills (hydrocodine) nearly as often. I now have gone about 4 years again with a few flare ups, but that is about it. I do however try and watch myself a little closer as to how heavy any items are that I lift, and the proper lifting procedures. I know this probably does not answer your question, but yes I have had the pain, and yes it did go up my neck and shoulders and burn. I do get numbness into my right arm and two of my fingers once and a while, but the pain has not flared up real bad since the one time back in 2000. The docs never have been able to figure out what is causing this.
