Hello iSpine,
Just wanted to share my expereince... In May 2006 I fell on my neck on a trampoline and got a severe burst compression fracture of C7 with retropulsion into the spinal canal.
I walked away from the trampoline in a lot of pain, but at least I walked away. I spent about 7 days lying still on the floor of my room and it seemed to be improving quickly. At that stage I didn't know it was broken - I thought it was just a strain. Since I was way out in the wilderness and improving quickly, I didn't feel the need to be air-lifted out.
A month later 95% of the pain had gone. A chiropractor x-rayed it and found the fracture. An MRI and CT scan revealed the true injury.
At this stage I was reading everything I could on the internet and found GPN - what a god-send! I went to a neurosugeon expecting a two-level spinal fusion, but the surgeon said that since I wasn't in pain then it wasn't worth taking the risk surgery. He told me to take my neck brace off and go home!
Now six months later, it appears on my x-rays that C7 has auto-fused with C6. Occasionally I do feel some little thing in there but have found that this is blocked energy which can be fixed by breathing into it and also emotional release techniques such as those found in the book The Journey by Brandon Bays. I very highly recommend this book. If I had to recommend one book about healing (and I've read hundreds of books on healing) then this one would be it. It is the story of a woman who used to lecture on health with Tony Robbins. She got cancer but then healed herself by releasing the festering emotions that caused the cancer. It's her story and she gives a simple procedure at the end to follow. It's helped me before with mysterious aches and pains in my body and back, but there are many stories of people recovering from serious afflictions like cancer, heart disease, depression....
Since I do not want to do high impact exercise, I am now doing Chi Kung - simple Chinese exercises like Tai Chi - which are no-impact. I learned these gentle exercises from a book (The Way of Energy by Master Lam Kam Chuen) and they have made me very strong and relaxed my muscles. Before the accident my neck muscles were as hard as rock, but now they are soft like butter. I do the static exercise pictured for 15 minutes/day plus some others to warm up. It's great for circulation too. It can't be done by brute force - you have to relax into it. So the muscles are working hard, but have to be relaxed at the same time. Relaxing and strengthening my muscles is doing wonders for my back, hips, shoulders, legs, knees - my whole body! See
http://www.orientalexercise.wanadoo....unghistory.htm for picutres.