Question
-hello, I never reicieved answer  ! please e-mail  thankyou  jerry                   [email protected]
Followup To
Question -
hello, my mother had narrowing of the spinal canal so she had surgery to relieve the pressure,pain and numbness then they did a 4 vertabrea fusion. but no relief ! they did a MRI and found a spot on the cord the size of a pea that is dead tissue .the surgeons compared it to a stroke they are treating with blood thinners and other fluids.there is no flow of spinal fluid or blood in this area of damage on the cord .it was not there before surgery.one doctor called it an infarction. this is rare .can you give me any insight into this type of complication ?
Answer -  

Answer
Jerry:
Sorry, I have been traveling lately. I am sure I sent you an answer, but here it is again.
This is a delicate question because it is about a postoperative complication. I can not answer anything specifically about your mother at all.
A spinal cord stroke can occur at any time on a person with compression of the spinal cord. Any manipulation performed with the best intentions of alleviating the compression can result on undesired cord inflammation. The inflammation can cause local pressure that can result in a stroke. This is the risk of tackling difficult cases of spinal stenosis. A more specific answer can be of course obtained after having different experts look at the specific case in detail. At the end is going to be hard to determine if there was a technical error that contribute to this outcome unless there was a flagrant one.
If the stroke was small and there was just mild worsening of the patient's condition or no worsening, then I think that possibility for improvement are high. I wish the best for your mom and your family.
FCM