I'm out of the habit of checking this site since the crash. I participated in this discussion before.

Two months after decompression (without fusion) of C4-5, 5-6, 6-7 on the left only, I began to have weakness and spasm in my neck and shouiders. Then I began to have pain around my right collarbone, followed by searing pain in my right shoulder, atrophy of that area, and nerve pain in my right arm.

It got so bad that eventually I could not lift my arm. An MRI showed extensive shoulder damage. Therapy for my shoulder didn't help and caused severe nerve pain throughout my upper body. My shoulder surgeon declined to do surgery, saying this could not all be coming from my shoulder.

During this past year, my entire upper body atrophied. My skin sways around my withered arms; I'm unable to do any arm exercise. I have asked one doctor after another what caused this atrophy, and have never had an answer.

It's been a year since the rotator cuff tear and shoulder damage were diganosed. I've been to something like 6 or 7 doctors, mostly surgeons.

Some say the problem is my spine, that my spine shifted after surgery, putting pressure on C6-7 on the right; and what I have now is cervical radiculopathy. Some say the problem is entirely in my shoulder.

The doctor who strikes me as being the most honest, a rehab doctor, says there's no way to say for sure what precipitated the shoulder damage, but he suspects the problem is in both my spine AND my shoulder.

NO doctor has been willing to do surgery since there's no consensus on what the problem is, so I've been left like this: in constant pain, becoming more and more disabled.

Does anyone have any light to shed on any of this?