Success Story

[atma_apple]

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.

[mmglobal]

Andrew, thanks for posting.

I hope you don't mind may saying that your films were really remarkable... I'm so happy that you are in such great shape and did not require surgery.

Keep us posted!

Mark

[mmglobal]

bumping for cp7959.... success without surgery. Unfoutunately, the poster's link to pictures is not valid any longer. I can't work on it now, I'd have to get his permission and post the images myself... perhaps when I get back from Europe.

He had a huge disc rupture and was certainly going for surgery. After being told to give it a chance to recover, it did... resorbed the herniation and his body took care of itself. (However, this type of story is more common with recent injuries. Once you are not an 'early responder', then the chance of this type of recovery is not as substantial.)

Mark

[Maria]

What an incredible story! Do cervical levels autofuse more easily than lumbar (or in less of a time frame?)

[mmglobal]

That is a doctor question... my impression is that is true, but am not really certain. What I do see is that even without autofusion, cervical levels will stop moving much more readily. People who have only moderately degenerated cervical discs will show them to be mostly immobile on flex/ext xrays. Search the forum for 'auto adjacent-segment disease'.

Mark

[cp7959]

I love to hear about success stories. It gives us hope.

Mark, I understand what your saying about time. If an injury occurs the best chance for success is in the shortest time frame. However I did mention in a previous post about my Dr.'s Lumbar herniation. He said he was in excruciating pain, and did not want surgery. He took up some form of exercise and in 18 months became pain free. That was 8 years ago. So I'm hoping for a positive outcome as well. But I know everyone's different.

I am very committed to exercise and stretching. I have incorporated some yoga. But I do have concerns about bending or twisting poses with a Annular Tear. Anyone have a view or opinion on that? I would love to try some, but don't want to make things worse.

[dshobbies]

Hi atma_apple,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting. I am thrilled for your success. Perhaps you auto fused because your bone was already broken and mended in more than one way.

Thanks for suggesting relaxation as part of an exercise program. I believe the way we carry ourselves, tense and bunched up, is responsible for many negatives in our body. I often suggest meditation and will look into this book.

I would also like to add that spinal education is an important factor. I can't think of anything that can really be done but if I knew then, when I first injured my back, what I know now, my life would have probably been very different. I had no idea what discs were, how they allowed movement or that they could be injured. Suffering with a bad back all my adult life, I was in constant back pain for 6 months before rupturing, in my opinion, at the hands of my chiropractor who should have known better.

Perhaps someone should make a commercial, geared for children, inbetween cartoons, telling them that though everyone at some point experiences back pain, it means something is wrong - from mild to very serious. That way they'll grow up knowing then what I wish I knew

Good for you, Dale

[Maria]

I have a bulge now I don't even remember which cervical level though I think it's C5/6. Supposedly DDD throughout cervical spine and osteophytes which at one time I was told can cause pain and also can keep the cervical spine somewhat less mobile. Now I think my cervical "stuff" has been around at least 10 plus years or at least seemed to have started back in the early 2000's. If autofusion does occur more quickly in cervical spine than lumbar and gives the relief that the lumbar level gave me that'd be nice tho I doubt it's happened yet.

Every once in a while I have a doozy neck thing going on like my low back used to do when it would "go out" meaning I can't move my head in any direction w/o severe pain though the last time I had that was probably several years ago. Normally from "bad positioning" I get neck pain and spasms. If severe now I try to get an injection of Toradol 60mg IM to alleviate. Seems like I need to have alot of relaxation of surrounding musculature (alleviation of spasms/tenseness/tightness) for relief as well.

Haven't had any films of any sort recently on my cervical spine (maybe 2 years) so am thinking I'd like to see the progression of whatevers been happening in there. Usually the neck pain also spawns terrifically painful headaches. Rest w/proper positioning of cervical spine and a fair amount of Fioricet usually will alleviate. The Toradol generally does the trick if the former doesn't work.

If I knew "then" what I know now re spinal education and I ever thought any of it would happen to me I'd have not danced jerking my head all over the place and done alot of the stupid stuff I did. Very heavy back packs through out college certainly didn't help.

[mmglobal]

bumping for poster asking about successes without surgery...