Hello all, first post from me, wish I was starting on a better footing.
This has been an unpleasant few years to say the least. Back in 2019 had a large rotator cuff tear in my left shoulder that was successfully repaired and I recovered sensibly, returning with better than full strength 9 months later. A difficult journey but rewarding, could see improvement along the way and all that. However some 9 months later, whilst hanging from a bar, something started burning in the back of my shoulder and trapezius area on my left side. I spent the next 6 months believing I had ripped my rotator cuff repair, but apparently, according to a half-dozen docs, my issues were to do with discs and nerves in my neck.
Over the next 12+ months I was in constant physiotherapy, regular yoga, months of dry needling, myotherapy, 3 epidural steroid shots - but nothing helped. I had 2 rounds of EMG and nerve conduction studies that were completely normal.
I kept my training load reasonable but constant burning in trapezius, back of shoulder and some arm pain meant I was not enjoying myself at all. To add, I developed both lateral and medial epicondylitis in my left elbow, along with ulnar neuritis, that meant I now also spent my days feeling like I’d been banging on my funny bone. Not fun!
Eventually I found a decent neuro-surgeon, after interviewing a few. He had me try a few lifestyle modifications, got me off the bike for 6w and so on. No real relief at all. 3 MRIs and a SPECT scan all showed pretty clear narrowing of the nerve exits from bone spurs and disc material at c5/6 me c6/7. With my elbow adding to my insanity, after 20 months of constant discomfort me having tried everything I could, I decided to take the surgical route.
My ‘fix’ was a fusion - ACDF at c6/7 and am artificial disc inserted into c5/6. The surgeon noted that the compression especially at c5/6 was pretty tight and that he’d freed it all up. This happened about 5w ago and the surgical recovery hasn’t been too bad, especially when compared to say rotator cuff, which had me sleeping in a recliner for 3 months!
By now I’d read pretty much every post on the subject and was hoping to awake with my arm pain gone, like so many seem to have done. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t. In fact, I had new weakness in my left arm and couldn’t even lift a mobile phone for the first few days. I was told that this was due to the rummaging around during the decompression on the left side, together with nerves suddenly having lots of room to pop back into, and that it would pass. Thankfully some of the arm strength lost post surgery at least seems to be very slowly improving But the constant burn in my neck, shoulder and arm remains. My right side fwiw is totally fine.
Surgeon says give it time but won’t be drawn into what i might expect for symptom relief. Going into surgery the stats I was given was 9 out of 10 people get significant pain relief, and from reading posts here and in other places, that seems to be pretty immediate.
After 5 weeks my neck itself seems to be healing well, range of motion is good and doesn’t bother me. I wish I could say the same about the burning through trap and arm though!
I’m wondering about any other experiences here - anyone been through this and had a decent recovery that didnt start immediately after surgery?