Cervical fusion recovery stories?

Noel Z wrote:

Do any of you also jog? I run on roads, so there's some tarmac pounding, but I wear good trainers and keep the distances moderate. Has anyone been advised or experienced first hand that jogging is a bad idea? 

Even though the neck is fixed you still have bone graft healing so I’d avoid any activity with repeated impact until the X-ray shows it’s healed (6m). So I’d. get a bike 

Update. Would have climbed earlier, but the rain/snow...anyway 1st time climbing last weekend (6 weeks post op), no pain, numbness/tingling, stiffness, only limited by not having exercised much. I was just careful to hop on routes that I knew well and could grab a piece of gear and rest if I felt like I might fall on the moves ahead. Even had some layback cruxes, just kept my neck in a neutral position and engaged. I'm gonna hold on pushing leading anything I might whip on and also any offwidthing, and will be doing road biking and laps on TR solo to get the strength back until my x-ray shows full fusion. Next X-ray end of Jan.

On the flip side, had a patient 10 years younger with the same surgery just got out of his rigid Aspen collar yesterday after 8 weeks, still with in some pain. I think most ortho's see folks a lot older and out of shape. Still, DFU the bone graft!

Just be cautious of those laybacks. I laid back an intense climb just over a month after surgery and felt great! As the bones fused, it put more pressure on the subsequent vertebrae and laybacks became an issue just a month later. 

Any update Michael? 

2 weeks out of surgery no pain full ROM, it’s almost 5 months, should be cleared by 6m I’ve been climbing at the gym taking care with falls and was trying to climb outside but the California weather put a stop to that. I just started lifting and am extremely weak. I can only do 1 pull up, could do 15 before I had to stop climbing a few months prior to surgery. So basically great. I do get some posterior neck pain and that is the facet joints fusing from immobilization due for the fusion, but not anything to really complain about. No arm or hand nerve pain or tingling or numbness.

Thank you for the update Michael. It's very much appreciated.

I'm glad for you that your nerve pain, tingling and numbness are gone. Regaining your fitness will come with time and the right application no doubt. Good luck!

Michael,

I appreciate your follow up and am glad to hear you’ve had a good recovery! I am also an OT and I work in acute care with patients immediately after c-spine surgery (on the neuro unit and in neuro ICU). I always advise my patients to #1 defer to their surgeon for specifics (they are all slightly different) and #2 let pain/symptoms be their guide, and err on the side of caution when it comes to post-op activity and mobility.

 As it’s been pointed out, two people with the same surgery can have vastly different recoveries, so there is no ‘one size fits all’ recommendation. That being said, I see a lot of people coming back for fusion extensions, or further spine surgeries, and I have anecdotally attributed this to the extra wear on neighboring vertebrae when you fuse part of the body that is meant to all move together. Of course, I’m not seeing all the people who just get one surgery and don’t return, so I’m not sure what the statistics on this are. Any thoughts?

I’m hoping to be an outlier in that statistic Melanie, but I’ve heard the same.
I have a disc replacement as well and unfortunately 2 disc replacements in a row were not approved by the FDA, so I got stuck having to do a fusion below the new disc.
In the future I imagine disc replacement will be completely replace fusion since you get full mobility from that area and it shouldn’t put pressure on the surrounding vertebrae.
If anybody is reading this and has the option to get a disc replacement in lieu of a fusion, do the replacement! I’m only a little more than a year out from my spinal surgery and so far, so good!

I’m glad that I got back to climbing earlier than advised. I think it’s helped strengthen the muscles around my spine. My doctor said to let pain be my guide, and that’s what I’ve done! I’m pain-free! 

Jaime, I hope you are too! Good to hear you have no pain and your recovery went smoothly. Being active and fit certainly puts you in a good place for post-op recovery. That and not overdoing it. This is something I’m trying to implement in my own life as a way of injury prevention. I’ll have to ask our spine PAs and NPs about disc replacement vs fusion next time I see them.

Two questions I’d ask regarding disc replacement or artificial disc: what’s the shelf life, and is there risk for ejection into the spinal cord?

6 month X-ray tomorrow. Hope I didn’t f* it up!!

M L wrote:

Two questions I’d ask regarding disc replacement or artificial disc: what’s the shelf life, and is there risk for ejection into the spinal cord?

6 month X-ray tomorrow. Hope I didn’t f* it up!!

Sounds like you got it under control Mike. Best of luck. Getting old(er) sucks, but it's better than the alternative. :-) 

Nice to hear from you Billcoe! I don’t know what you’re talking about though, I’m only 26

M L wrote:

I'm getting a C5/6 discectomy and fusion. My doctor told me I won't be able to climb or train except for simple shit for 6 months. I'm 45 yo. 

Haha, it reminds me of my wife. She started subtracting years as she got older. The kids were confused at first, and didn't challenger her.   LOL. Thus, she remained 25 years old for many years past 50 -so many. She still looks good, but the moral is that you can BS a 6 year old but not a 33 year old  (our youngest) is what we all learned. haha.  

Anyway, one of my partners is incapacitated due to extreme back pain. Carrying climbing films is the cause.  I recommended chiropractic as it worked so well for me, and he took me up on it as well as PT but it's not working for him, its getting worse. Hard to watch someone go from one of the states top climber to not being able to stand up for longer than 5 min. Hikes anywhere or any distance, of course, are out of the question. He's doing surgery and hopefully it works, as it does for some. 

Good luck with it, heal up fast and fully!