The circled area shows the bulging disc between vertebrae C4 and C5. The major issue was that the disc was bulging into the spinal cord and compressing it. This is what caused the loss of feeling when my head whipped backwards resulting in even greater spinal compression. After seeing this, I recalled that I had experienced similar symptoms (although much more mild) when I had fallen on my back while bouldering a few times years back. So this condition wasn't really new, but had been around for some time. I'm guessing that it first started in a car accident over 10 years ago. At that time, my doctor (a DO - Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) "fixed" my neck pain by cracking it back in place. It felt much better at the time, but I think that injury was the root of the current problem.
I didn't really want to have surgery so I first looked into some alternative treatments. I tried doing some decompression exercises and icing the back of my neck. But I didn't notice any change in the symptoms. Based on Connie's mom's input, I decided to try a NUCCA chiropractor. It's actually kind of an interesting approach, and much different than standard chiropractic. I really don't like the idea of having my neck cracked so I wasn't going to see a regular chiropractor. But the NUCCA just uses a gentle pressure on the side of your head to make adjustments to your Atlas bone (first cervical vertebrae). The theory is that this bone controls your head and spinal alignment. They monitor progress via X-rays. I must admit that I was skeptical, but I actually felt some changes after a couple of visits.
The problem though was that I was walking around like a ticking bomb. If I happened to get into a car accident or fall a certain way, it was possible to cause permanent spinal cord damage. So I also started checking into neurosurgeons to evaluate the surgery option. A fortunate thing is that I came across a friend (Tabo) of a friend (Carol) who is a Physician's Assistant at an Orthopaedic Center. Tabo use to work in San Diego, but now lives Montana. He happened to be in San Diego one weekend, and agreed to meet with me and review my MRI's. He felt that there was irreversible structural damage, and that surgery would be the best option. He also felt I should try to get an artificial disc, if possible. He cautioned that this surgery was not to be taken lightly, and that I wouldn't want just anyone doing the operation. He referred me to 4-5 neurosurgeons that he felt were the best in this area.
I had consultations with 3 of them, and the consensus was that it was not a condition that would get better through any kind of therapy. Sometimes bulging discs can go through a resorption process where they reduce in size through conservative treatment. But my disc had structural damage so they all said that it would not do this. Now you can say that the neurosurgeons all had something to gain by telling me this, but Tabo was just providing free advice based on his experience and had no affiliation with any of the doctors I consulted. So I put a lot of weight in his advice, and all of the other doctors just confirmed it.
Now that it was determined that a surgical procedure was required, the question was: artificial disc replacement or vertebrae fusion? The insurance companies made the answer easy as there was only one company that was approving the artificial disc procedure, and it wasn't the insurance I had. So there was no choice but to have the disc removed, and the vertebrae fused. The procedure is called Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion (ACDF). They basically cut out the bad disc, replace it with a cadaver bone graft, and then plate the vertebrae together so that the bones will eventually fuse.
Having coming to terms that surgery was my best option, I then selected a doctor from the ones I had met. Dr. Tim Peppers at Core Orthopaedic was my choice based on a few things. One is that he had gone through the same operation, and wore the scar on his neck. He's a surfer so he could relate to me any limitations imposed by the operation. He demonstrated his range of motion which didn't appear to be very limited. And he works with active people a lot so he understood the types of things I was concerned about.
So on August 31, 2009, I checked into Scripps Hospital in Encinitas, and had the ACDF procedure done. I think the actual operation only took about 1-1/2 hrs. I wore a soft collar for 2 weeks, and was back to work after just 1 week. The worst part of the the early recovery was difficulty swallowing. I had to severely limit my range of motion for 3 mos while the bones were fusing. That made driving an interesting experience as I had to turn my whole body to check for cross traffic. After 3 mos, I was allowed to slightly increase the motion. At 6 months, they considered the bones to be fully fused, and cleared me to return to all normal activities. That's basically where I'm at now. I'm finding that I'm way out of shape, and have been injuring things by doing too much too soon. The road to full recovery is apparently going to be a long one. Here's the way things look in there now...
Haven't tested it yet, but I've been told that I'm metal detector safe :^)
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