Hi I'm Joce from Australia, I've just turned 28.
I got my ACDF surgery 2 and a half months ago on C5/ C6. I immediately noticed that the pain I've had in beween my shoulder blades since I was in a car accident 7 years ago was GONE, it was wonderful, I was so grateful to my surgeon. But I've had a lot of neck and shoulder muscle pain ever since. I was careful not to lift pretty much anything for about the first 6 weeks, and as I've gotten more involved with life (ie- shopping, washing the dogs, cooking, housework) the pain in my neck muscles seems as bad as it ever was after my car accident Turning over during the night is particularly painful, and I'm always rubbing very stiff tender muscles in the back of my neck that weren't really a huge problem before the surgery, but are very bothersome every day now, despite taking 2 voltarin 25mg tablets with every meal and in between taking 20mg of codeine, also I might add, the painkillers don't actually seem to help that much- I'm very much in the habit of taking them after 7 years of agony with an undiagnosed herniated disc. I FINALLY saw a physio yesterday for the first time since the surgery (for $28,000 the hospital costs did not include one) and she has me doing some excercises that will apparently strengthen the "little" muscles between the vertebrea, as I'm relying on the "big" muscles to do my lifting in my neck. So we'll see how that goes...