Posted , 3 users are following.
I have bilateral cervical ribs, diagnosed two years back. When exposed to direct and severe heat (such as direct sunlight during summer) it happens to be extreme migraine and neck pain. In normal day to day life it does not create any problem. Is it still necessary to remove these ribs through surgery ?
0 likes, 2 replies
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Snowcraher jeetu88
Posted
This is a question for you and your doctor/surgeon. If it's only certain times I would suggest going to a physical therapist first. See if you can work on some exercises/stretches to help relieve the pain. I keep hearing, even from other doctors, that the surgery doesn't work for everyone. It helped me CONSIDERABLY! With the pain, I still have numbness that comes and goes. I still take 200mg of Lyrica 3x a day for nerve pain too. It's a rough surgery though. I wouldn't recommend anything so extreme as surgery unless it's chronic and hurting your quality of life.
delores08034 jeetu88
Posted
Hi Jeetu88, I also deal with the same issues as you. It's been a rough summer. Normally I do well in the summer months here in Philly but the heat and humidity have been horrible this year. I found out in July 2016 that I have the extra rib bones. That goes along with the 5 bad disc in my neck along with Fibromyalgia, Degenerative Disc Disease, and Cervical Spondylosis. I've had the latter since 2007 but just found out about the extra cervical rib bones. I was told by a very good neurosurgeon after getting an MRI, CT Scan and XRay to see if surgery was an option that I had them. Altogether I've had about 12 or 13 MRI's and he was the only Specialist (and I've seen quite a few) that I had them. I'm not sure if the other Specialist saw them or they just grew prior to the 12th MRI. I'm thinking that they just grew and became a problem, maybe not. Anyway the last Specialist that I saw said that he was not going to touch them. I cried because he had my hopes set on doing surgery to fix my issues and then saying that he wouldn't. My neck hurts everyday, all the time. My quality of life is shot and I'm very frustrated. I've read that some people do okay after getting surgery and some not so good. Don't know but mine seem to be really bad when the humidity is high, before it's going to rain and the pain is tremendously debilitating when it snows.