I've been having numbness and tingling in the right arm for 2 weeks. I got
an MRI last Friday, and it showed that I had herniated cervical disks
(that's slipped disks in the neck in layperson-speak) at the following
levels: C3-C4, C4-C5, and C5-C6 (this last level is where it's worst). I
haven't experienced any loss of strength and coordination (yet). Based on
the advice of a friend of mine that has had the same problem, I've avoided
any exercise that could involve bending or stretching of the neck (so just
stationary cycling for now), restricted myself to lifting no more than 10
lbs. at a time, and am taking anti-inflammatory medication. I'm awaiting a
(timely) referral to a neurosurgeon.
My questions to my fellow Masters swimmers:
1. Have any of you ever experienced this problem?
2. If the answer to (1) is yes, then what sort of treatment (medical and
non-medical) did you receive?
3. Are there any specific things I should be avoiding, swimming-wise (certain strokes, drills, etc? I assume diving is out of the question) and exercise-wise?
4. Before I saw what my MRI looked like (I'm an Internal Medicine MD, so I
could see my MRI was abnormal), I had continued to swim, and actually felt
that swimming helped me feel better. Does anyone out there know if swimming can actually put you at risk for this type of injury?
Physicians, as a rule, tend to err on the side of rest and inactivity for
recovery from any injury, so if anyone has any evidence that states that I can
keep up with at least some swimming while I find out what my course of
treatment will be, I would certainly be grateful for that. I've only started
to get seriously back into swimming since last fall, and was actually
starting to feel good about my swimming, so this recent setback has me
really bummed out at present :-(
Dec 4th 2001, Cervical Spine Fusion of C3-C4 and C-5. Used a donor instead of doing a bone graft (Have heard of more people having problems with the graft than the fusion) Lost a little bit of mobility due to the surgery. From the moment I woke up all the pain and numbness were gone...loved it!! Hated the hard brace I had to wear, but got over that. Have played softball, racquetball and swam since without that problem reoccuring.
Have heard that the new synthetic disc replacement is a great option. Have a friend that had it done and was back to work within a couple weeks (I was out for a month and a half).
Would I do it again? Absolutely, the pain and numbness I experienced prior to the surgery was driving me nuts...felt great when I woke up...
Dec 4th 2001, Cervical Spine Fusion of C3-C4 and C-5. Used a donor instead of doing a bone graft (Have heard of more people having problems with the graft than the fusion) Lost a little bit of mobility due to the surgery. From the moment I woke up all the pain and numbness were gone...loved it!! Hated the hard brace I had to wear, but got over that. Have played softball, racquetball and swam since without that problem reoccuring.
Have heard that the new synthetic disc replacement is a great option. Have a friend that had it done and was back to work within a couple weeks (I was out for a month and a half).
Would I do it again? Absolutely, the pain and numbness I experienced prior to the surgery was driving me nuts...felt great when I woke up...
