Its been four days since my MVD on Wednesday. We will be in Detroit at least through Monday, when I have my follow up appointment with Dr Casey.
First of all, Dr Casey and his crew were great. Every kind word said about him is absolutely true. The first 24 hours post op were pretty rough, but Im steadily improving each day. I spent one day in the ICU, and another day in a regular room. Out of the hospital after two days. Nausea, pain from the surgery, and feeling unsteady are my main problems right now. All the TN pain on my left side appears to be gone at this time!!! Im mostly resting now, and working on getting my strength back. Short walks and sitting up for longer periods of time are about all I can handle for now.
I ended up having four areas of compression. A vein and an artery were compressing the Trigeminal nerve. An artery also grew between my facial and vestibularcochlear nerves, compressing both of them. All areas were padded.
Glad very thing turned out ok… I’m thinking about having MVD surgery… Will you get back your steady like normal ? Sounds like its a good thing you had it…
It's great to hear from you. I've been thinking of you. Take it easy but keep up those short little walks if you can. Rest up and keep us posted as you recover.
Yes, that’s quite the repair list! Dr Casey had his work cut out!! So glad to hear positive news!! I’ll be praying for your continued success and recovery. Are you off the strong pain meds ? I felt human after that was all out of my system. Advil worked great for the ache.
Wonderful news. Have been anxiously waiting to know that things went well. Slow and steady on the recovery, I know it will be great to get home in your own bed and surroundings. Keep us posted when you can. Jo Ann
Yay! So happy for you, Kathy, that you bravely made it through and are on the other side of TN (hopefully for good!). I will pray for your speedy recovery. Take it easy . . let your husband, family and friends take care of you. They want to and you need it for now. I definitely want to hear all the details once you are ready to share more. I'm 10 weeks out now and am actually looking forward to the day :).
Today was an extremely difficult day. Switching to naproxen and something else for nausea. Vicodin making me hallucinate, Head pain / nausea bad. We were going to start drive home thought it’d be better to drive at night. Hubby out picking up new meds.
Make sure you have pillows to support the nonsurgical side of your head while riding in the car, even if it means sitting in the back. That really helped me with the car drive after my MVD.
Yes I agree - the pillows really helped me too! I hope the new meds work better for you so you can just sleep in the car the whole way home. That's what I did and it really helped. If I was awake, the car ride made me nauseated. It wasn't much fun traveling but once I got home, things really improved so hopefully they will for you too! I took Zofran after about the 3rd day for the nausea and that helped. I still didn't eat much but I was able to keep everything down. I can't remember what he gave me in the first place but it didn't work as well....
Thanks for sharing, I am going to have the MVD surgery next month, . While I don;t post very often, I have have been following the discussion's thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences and progress,
Home Sweet Home!!! Thanks for the advice, support, High 5 and hugs!! Made it home in 6 hrs with tons of pillows, feather mattress and blankets. Hydroxyzine covered the nausea, advil the pain.
Good luck to future MVDers Donna, Mybell and John. Donna- my balance is improving a little already. Mybell 10 wks!! I’ll post more detsils and anyone feel free to ask questions. John good luck, do you have a day picked out?
Shindig- thanks, I plan to try to take it easy, hard to sit still. My incision has 10 staples. Yes, very mulletish! Hope you are still improving.
Did any of you put anything on you incision this early? Neosporin? Mine looks a little red?
Kathy, I was advised to put absolutely nothing on the incision. Try to avoid touching it, if you must, make sure hands, nails are very clean. I had 8 staples that were removed around 7-10 days after MVD by my local doctors office as my op was also in another city.
At around 3 months post op I noticed a small pimple like bump that was tender at the bottom of my incision, saw my doctor and they lanced it and rx’d an antibiotic type cream. It was an ingrown hair…go figure. It healed within a week.
Glad you are home, get comfy and get lots of rest my friend!
(( hugs )) Mimi xx
Dr Casey told me to put cocoa butter on it right away. I have been doing that 2-3 times daily since my surgery. Mine is VERY red and draining slightly, especially the lower half. I have been corresponding with Dr. Casey about it and sending pictures because I was worried. He said the stitches are disolving now, and they act kind of like a splinter coming out. It is much sorer now than it was right away so hopefully this won't last long. I don't know if my body just doesn't want to disolve them or if everyone has this issue but it's really not much fun.
I'm so glad you are home now and found something to help with the nausea. I know I was very relieved to be home and felt much better there. Rest, rest, rest!
Kathy, I am so glad o hear you are doing better after your surgery. I will pray for a complete recover with no TN pain. I have had my TN since 2010 and I use meds to control the Type #1 & Type #2 pain. I use trileptal. I am on long tern disability from work. I am 60 yrs old. I did consider the MVD surgery, but decided against for now. How many MVD surgeries does your surgeon do a year? Is this his specialty? That is my fear of having a surgeon who is not a specialist in this area. I know if one in Tampa, Fla who specializes in MVD surgery. Best of luck to you and my prayers go out to you. God bless you! Let's stay in touch.
Deej- That would worry me too. I hope its just a natural process. I didn’t get to see him for a follow-up appt because he was called out for an emergency surgery.We just emailed a couple times, changed my meds and said I was free to travel. I did email him about this earlier I’m sure he’ll get back to me today.
Shindig-Too funny!! Haven’t stopped any random strangers to show yet but I’ll consider it on my first outing! 23 Wow, i vaguely remember you picture I’ll have to look at it again.
Richard- I’ve had it since 2010 too. I did tons of research after KC dancer and Red from this site referred me to Ken Casey in Michigan. For me, he was the only guy I would let do this procedure. I read his book Striking Back, his researchh articles and video presentation on U Tube. I think he has done over 10, 000 of these. I work in healthcare and have met many awesome doctors, also some that I wouldn’t let trim my toenails. I trust Dr Casey and I believe the to be really good at something you must do it hundreds, or better yet 10, 000 timez
shindig said:
10 staples is pretty good. I had 23 lol and it looked AWESOME, I was showing every stranger I came across, in the grocery store, pumping gas, everywhere. lol
Ended up going to get my haircut and the barber was like “I remember you from the pharmacy” (on the way home from the hospital) where I walked up to him and was like, check this out. lol
