week 20 - More improvement in my range of movement. I can now almost reach the top of my steering wheel while driving. I can also touch my forehead with my finger. One month ago, I could only reach my nose. My bicep strength has increased a little, but my arm has to be flexed about 10 degrees (using my other arm) before I can curl it. I still cannot turn my palm up unless my arm is resting on a surface. Your bicep muscle (surprisingly) is mostly responsible for your ability to turn your wrist (like turning a key in a lock) and since my bicep is almost non-existent, I cannot turn my wrist and curl my arm at the same time.

At this point, these improvements are due to the nerve sprouts I wrote about in an earlier post. The nerve roots have not regrown yet. It may take another 6 months for that happen (if it happens). Since my recovery has been so slow, my doctor is not optimistic that I will see complete regrowth of the nerve roots. How much regrowth I will see is just a guess at this point, but 50% is what the doctor has predicted.

As far as the pain goes, there has been no improvement. Pain in the forearm and deltoid areas are pretty intense without 1200 mg of Gabapentin, 3 times a day. Doctor says the pain will not likely go away until the main nerve root has started to regrow. I don't know which is worse, the inability to move my arm, or the constant pain.

The buzzing and tingling that happens when I tilt my head down has gotten much better. It is still there, but not nearly as bad. Maybe I have just gotten used to it.

I will keep updating this thread, but only when there are significant improvements, or if there is anything relevant to add. I don't want to bore everyone with such a long drawn out timeline.

What kind of surgery did you have?

My first surgery was ACDF (anterior cervical decompression & fusion). That was not enough to relieve the compression of my spinal cord, so they went back in through the rear and did a posterior decompression. The posterior decompression involves cutting out the lamina, which are the rear sections of the spine (the bones you can see bulging out on your neck). When this is done, it leaves much more room for the spinal cord. Unfortunately, when the space got bigger, the spinal cord shifted backwards into the center of the newly opened space and caused the nerve roots to get stretched.

Update for week 25 - biceps are still very weak. I cannot bend my arm unless it is first bent to a 15-20 degree angle using my other arm. Once the arm is bent, I can actually lift a drink to my mouth, but I think that is mainly my brachialis muscle doing the work, not the bicep. The brachialis is the muscle that sits below the bicep and also helps curl the arm.

My deltoids have gotten a little better. I can rotate my arm to the side a couple more degrees and rotate forward a slight bit more (not much).

Therapist says that there is also weakness in the infraspinatus and supraspinatus (muscles in the shoulder over the scapula). There is muscle activity, but they are weak.

Pain is still intense. I've tried going a day without the Gabapentin, but that only lasted about 4 hours.......

Doctor has scheduled an EMG to see if there is any nerve recovery. If the nerves are coming back, the EMG will give him an idea of how much. The fact that the uninjured nerves have created new sprouts will confuse the results of this test, so it is not an absolute test.

Week 27 - not much improvement. Biceps are still very weak and getting no better. Deltoids seem too be a slight bit better. I can reach the sun visor on my car. The pain seems to be getting worse for some reason and my doctor doesn't have any answers for me. She simply says that the pain may or may not go away.......

EMG has still not been done. I guess I'll have to put some pressure them to get it scheduled.