Barbara,
Sorry for the delay... I'm still recovering from a grueling trip to NY last weekend for Ethics conference. More later about that.
I've seen many people with the symptoms you described relieved by cervical ADR. I wouldn't say that people unexpectedly recover except that some doctors are too quick to say that nerve damage is permanent and you'll never get it back... I don't understand how or why they think they know that except when spoken in the context when they want to demotivate you regarding surgery.... it's already permanent. See JackH story on GPN website.
The (cervical) people I know who did not get relief or got much delayed relief were people who were very bad going into surgery. Obviously, this is not to say that something is not possible... I'm just relating what I remember from my experience through the years.
Hopefully, ADR will restore normal kinematics, but it's not magic about putting your spine back in perfect alignment. This may be one area in which sooner is better than later, when the result of disc collapse, endless muscle spasms, etc.... results in deformity, lack of spinal balance, etc...
As we discussed, number 7 and 8 may represent a serious change in the landscape.... those types of issues may be related to delay of signals to the brain and should be taken very seriously. Get evaluated by a neuro and discover if these issues might be spinal cord related instead of exiting nerve root.... this might change one's decision from a 'quality of life' decision into an 'avoid further spinal cord damage' decision.
There was in interesting discussion on Braintalk here:
http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/...ad.php?t=13647