Post by rowsnoelle on Jun 14, 2018 19:50:23 GMT -6
Lots of puzzle pieces on this one, but more than anything, I would like to know if anyone has experienced anything remotely akin to what I have been going through since last April 2017.
Long story (as) short (as possible)-- I am in my mid-twenties and got health insurance for the first time. I finally got that one bump on the base of my head/neck looked at. It had been there for about 5+ years and recently started bothering me a little because it felt like it was pushing on muscles or something in my neck.
I was referred to a minimally invasive surgeon. I stayed awake for the surgery and was told it was just a common cyst and the surgery should not take more than 15 minutes-stitches and all. At about 30 minutes in (and a lot of blood!) the surgeon was starting to get a little audibly...irritated (for lack of a better word). He had to keep cutting deeper to get to the "cyst". He also had to apply more and more of the injected Novocaine deeper and deeper. Finally, at like the 40 minute mark, he pulled it out. It felt weird coming out- almost as though something pulled along with it. He asked me if I wanted to see it (thinking I'd say 'hell no') and I said totally. It was an off-white colored, jelly-looking tadpole. It was about the size of a ping pong ball (slightly smaller) and had a tail about twice its diameter. He mumbled it was abnormal and so they would send it to the lab just in case. He then stitched me up with several layers of dissolving stitches.
Lab results came back and I was very casually told it was some rare thing called a schwannoma-- he had never seen one before, he said-- and that was it. I asked if it was going to come back or what caused it and if he knew more about how I could prevent another one...etc. etc. He basically avoided all my questions- said I am an anxious girl (I am), and said it had a very very low chance of coming back or reoccurring and he didn't know what could have caused it since it could have been a lot of things. Basically, he seemed out of his league.
Since then, April 2017, I have had 8 different creams and 3 different types of antibiotics prescribed to me in order to make the incision site heal properly. It always has had some redness as well as some bumps that come and go. Nothing seemed to work very well, and as soon as I stopped the medications, it would slowly get worse again.
Now-- here is where things get complicated and confusing.
Since January of this year, I have been in constant pain-- like an average of 8/10 pain. I have been having constant muscle spasms in my back and abdomen. The muscle spasms moved to my neck region one day and made breathing difficult to I went to the ER. (Lonnnng story short part) They found I had two bulging discs in my lower back (L4-6) and prescribed me a 6-day steroid pack. It worked super well, but then a week or so later, the pain was back. I had every test done under the sun-- xrays, ct's MRI's, ultrasounds, etc. A neurosurgeon performed a full MRI and discovered that the bulging discs I have are so minor that there is no way they are causing the muscle spasms. He was clueless and said to just wait. I got a pain management doctor, who then referred me to a neurologist. I do not have that appointment until mid-July.
Ready for the weirdest part? Well, last Tuesday I had a whole bunch of doctor's appointments on one day that ended with a trip to the dermatologist who had been trying to make that incision from my Schwannoma removal better. I initially decided I needed to have it looked at again because when I had a CT with the IV contrast and the drink contrast, afterwards I developed a grape-sized, super itchy bump on my incision-- randomly. It went away after a half day or so, but remained slightly more irritated. This time at the dermatologist they just went straight for the direct solution-- she mixed a steroid injection and did several small injections into the incision site. One felt almost like it had pierced a pocket of skin or something...WELL....since then-- no more muscle spasms. My pain is, at most, like a 2/10. It hurts the most (and always has) when I sit. Walking is fine.
If you actually read this far-- thank you. Any advice or feedback is appreciated. This is a work in progress, but I have been educated so little about what was removed from my head/neck that I want to know more. Is it possible that I have some sort of nerve damage from that 'tail' being pulled out? Could it be inflammation? Is there even a connection here!? I want to be off this Valium (literally the only muscle relaxer that has worked out of 5 others)!
Long story (as) short (as possible)-- I am in my mid-twenties and got health insurance for the first time. I finally got that one bump on the base of my head/neck looked at. It had been there for about 5+ years and recently started bothering me a little because it felt like it was pushing on muscles or something in my neck.
I was referred to a minimally invasive surgeon. I stayed awake for the surgery and was told it was just a common cyst and the surgery should not take more than 15 minutes-stitches and all. At about 30 minutes in (and a lot of blood!) the surgeon was starting to get a little audibly...irritated (for lack of a better word). He had to keep cutting deeper to get to the "cyst". He also had to apply more and more of the injected Novocaine deeper and deeper. Finally, at like the 40 minute mark, he pulled it out. It felt weird coming out- almost as though something pulled along with it. He asked me if I wanted to see it (thinking I'd say 'hell no') and I said totally. It was an off-white colored, jelly-looking tadpole. It was about the size of a ping pong ball (slightly smaller) and had a tail about twice its diameter. He mumbled it was abnormal and so they would send it to the lab just in case. He then stitched me up with several layers of dissolving stitches.
Lab results came back and I was very casually told it was some rare thing called a schwannoma-- he had never seen one before, he said-- and that was it. I asked if it was going to come back or what caused it and if he knew more about how I could prevent another one...etc. etc. He basically avoided all my questions- said I am an anxious girl (I am), and said it had a very very low chance of coming back or reoccurring and he didn't know what could have caused it since it could have been a lot of things. Basically, he seemed out of his league.
Since then, April 2017, I have had 8 different creams and 3 different types of antibiotics prescribed to me in order to make the incision site heal properly. It always has had some redness as well as some bumps that come and go. Nothing seemed to work very well, and as soon as I stopped the medications, it would slowly get worse again.
Now-- here is where things get complicated and confusing.
Since January of this year, I have been in constant pain-- like an average of 8/10 pain. I have been having constant muscle spasms in my back and abdomen. The muscle spasms moved to my neck region one day and made breathing difficult to I went to the ER. (Lonnnng story short part) They found I had two bulging discs in my lower back (L4-6) and prescribed me a 6-day steroid pack. It worked super well, but then a week or so later, the pain was back. I had every test done under the sun-- xrays, ct's MRI's, ultrasounds, etc. A neurosurgeon performed a full MRI and discovered that the bulging discs I have are so minor that there is no way they are causing the muscle spasms. He was clueless and said to just wait. I got a pain management doctor, who then referred me to a neurologist. I do not have that appointment until mid-July.
Ready for the weirdest part? Well, last Tuesday I had a whole bunch of doctor's appointments on one day that ended with a trip to the dermatologist who had been trying to make that incision from my Schwannoma removal better. I initially decided I needed to have it looked at again because when I had a CT with the IV contrast and the drink contrast, afterwards I developed a grape-sized, super itchy bump on my incision-- randomly. It went away after a half day or so, but remained slightly more irritated. This time at the dermatologist they just went straight for the direct solution-- she mixed a steroid injection and did several small injections into the incision site. One felt almost like it had pierced a pocket of skin or something...WELL....since then-- no more muscle spasms. My pain is, at most, like a 2/10. It hurts the most (and always has) when I sit. Walking is fine.
If you actually read this far-- thank you. Any advice or feedback is appreciated. This is a work in progress, but I have been educated so little about what was removed from my head/neck that I want to know more. Is it possible that I have some sort of nerve damage from that 'tail' being pulled out? Could it be inflammation? Is there even a connection here!? I want to be off this Valium (literally the only muscle relaxer that has worked out of 5 others)!