Turns out I have a disc bulge between two of my cervicals and it’s pinching a nerve, which is very very painful and weakening my arm and finger sensitivity.
I’m not here asking for advice, rather to get an idea of what’s down the road for me depending on the type of treatment I’ll end up following. I am seeing a doctor, I have an appointment tomorrow. I also had a CT scan done.
So basically if you’ve had something similar anywhere on your spine I’d appreciate to know about it. Did you recover fully? How long did it take? What treatment did you follow? Did you complement it with anything such as specialized exercises, acupuncture, massage or else?
usually the physical therapy approach has a plan of care of around 8-12 weeks, usually 2-3 doctor visits a week, with a set of exercises to be done by the patient in between. for the patients that actually do the exercise homework, it cures around 75% of patients. unfortunately most patients don’t do the homework exercises.
also a large portion of modern western adults don’t get nearly enough exercise in general, and also have really bad ergonomics in work and rest. the way you sit at work, the way you hold your head when using your phone etc. part of treatment can be helping to figure out how you weakening and hurting yourself.
I was one of the people who did my homework exercises, and still do (mostly). It’s worked well enough.
I wish my father would have. He almost immediately wrote them off as unnecessary and blamed insurance for not wanting to pay for surgery even though multiple doctors recommended physical therapy instead. He’s now two or three years into the pian.
I have 4 bulging discs, pain was insane, found an exceptional physio, did everything prescribed and as close to pain free as u can get now going on 3 years, if I miss even 1 or two days of the rehab exercise I can feel the pain returning. Find a good physiotherapist that really knows muscoskeltal things, and do what they say people!