Need second opinion on and odd question

Background:

I'm almost two years post surgery for ACDF (I have C5 - C7 bone removed, cages installed, a plate over that with 6 screws then bone marrow from my hip put into the cages).

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After surgery I was left with nerve damage to my left side from my nerve root down so my entire left arm, some delt and lat are affected (not from the surgery, from the damage inside the neck that needed repaired). When I was finally able to lift again I had gained quite a bit of weight and lost an amazing amount of muscle (for example when I tried to bench press for the first time, I put on 55lbs and the left side just fell to my chest, I struggled with it). My current state my left tricep has one head that doesn't work so it adds more stress to my chest and shoulder, my symmetry is off yadda yadda I have a long ways to go.

When I could start pushing it some, I ran some heavy cycles (heavy for me) to aggressively get back to where I was before I lost it all. I'm a long ways a way but I'm a lot better off than what I was, my bench and squat are both back up over 300lbs, I can't really deadlift yet and I'm limited on some other things but the point is I tried to make an aggressive comeback and I think I've made good progress with the time I've had to recover.

I'm not fully healed yet, C6-C7 has enough bone that the plate does not flex, C5 - C6 however has longer to go before it's closed up, I was told part of the long healing time is due to how much bone they removed so for a while and for some time longer my head is connected to my body through a thin plate and some screws until the bone grows into the gap.

So on my "road to recovery" I'm not lifting as aggressive as I used to but there are times I start to push it and I gotta remember hold on, not yet.

Question:

When I squat light, say 225lbs everything is peachy, when I start putting on some weight, say 300lbs I feel like a "grinding metal" vibrate up through my neck. When I went to 325 something just wasn't right and I backed it back down but at 300 I can go ass to grass, no struggles everything is solid but some of the reps I get that feeling of metal stressing or grinding.

What I don't know is, am I stressing the metal in my neck (the weight sits nearly on top of the fusion site) or am I feeling like the plates rub against the bar and the vibration comes up through my neck.

When ya'll start pushing enough weight on squats that the bar starts to get a bend in it, do you ever feel like a grinding vibration in the bar, am I being paranoid or am I about to snap off a screw?

I actually know quite a bit about this particular procedure and its recovery. Maybe I can help you out a bit.

Was this a traumatic injury or was it DDD/DJD?

I don't know what DDD/DJD means but - long winded response ahead

I was riding a motorcycle and turned to look over my shoulder and felt what I can best describe as someone twisting a thing of bubble wrap and then I felt odd after.

About a week or so after that I continued to have pain running down the left side of my neck/trap/back so I started going to the chiropractor daily, my condition continued to decline and the chiropractor said enough is enough you have to go for an MRI, result was a spiral burst from 2 through 7, C5 through C7 were impacting nerves, C6-C7 burst into the formiol (spell?) opening and impacted the entire nerve root. My chiropractor said I needed to get into a neurosurgeon asap.

Long story short I started getting the family saying don't let those butchers touch you etc. so I got into a pain clinic first (big mistake), you can't just walk into these places so at this point it had been weeks since my original rupture and I was on tons of drugs as my condition continued to decline.

My bottom disk burst again while I was laying in bed and I stretched - I felt it, it's a feeling I'll never forget, and my condition continued to decline, at that point laying down was no longer an option, I slept upright from then on out. (it was months before I layed down, that's a story in and of itself).

I don't remember the exact timeline once the drugs started flowing but my muscles on my left side atrophied at an alarming rate, at some point early on I started losing feeling in my left side, my pointer and ring finger went first and it just spread from there, I could have chopped my fingers off and not felt a thing. At first I was like I'll deal, but then I had trouble typing, I couldn't hold things (I constantly dropped things cause I couldn't feel it in my hand).

At this point my left side was shockingly visibly smaller than my right side, my arm was a stick. I took WAY more drugs then I was supposed to, I figured it would help curb the pain or I would die, I was fine with either (I think I damaged my kidneys).

I finally got into the pain clinic and they were like well your symptoms are way worse than your MRI (I had additional ruptures since the MRI, two I believe) but they wanted to start with an epidural injection first to avoid surgery, I was like whatever dude lets just do this. so that's what we did.

Shit got way worse after that.

My left arm curled up and was worthless, my left trap was "on", it was full flex like it was shorted out, my peck and lat were NON STOP twitching like I was being hit with a tazer and I don't mean minor twitching it was going full flex, it was painful, 24 hours a day.

I told everyone to kiss my ass I wanted cut open or to die so I finally got an appointment with a neurosurgeon. At that point I couldn't even tell you how much of each drug I was taking, I'd pop an oxy, wait 20 minutes and pop another, wait 20 and pop another, I didn't even bother looking at a clock. I was taking 1200 mg of ibuprofin at a shot, and I couldn't tell you how many times a day, my blood pressure was so high the nurse thought her blood pressure cuff machine was broken, when she realized it wasn't she flipped out, I was so high I didn't care.

As soon as the surgeon saw me he was like damn we gotta operate now - we schedule the operation and I had to get off some of the drugs to get my BP down or they wouldn't operate. A buddy of mine hooked me up with some - lets just call it alternative natural pain medication - omg for the first time in months I was pain free, but that's a different story. My back was so rigid I fell asleep sitting on the edge of my couch straight up and down and slept that way for about two hours before I woke up and was like wtf.

During surgery I woke up several times, I remember it as clear as can be. I had a conversation with my anesthesiologist after the procedure and he thought I was pulling his leg until I described the operating room to him and started repeating their conversations back to him - he went pale and said in 20 years he'd never had a patient repeat back conversations. You want a living nightmare, let someone strap your ass into a bench, flip you upside down, stretch you, stick a breathing tube in you and cut on your ass while your tied down. He was like yea it was probably like a dream or a fog, I'm like no dude, the lights were blue, there were two of them, the nurse was being a bitch and you told her blah blah - shit was real. They pumped my stomach twice while I was upside down with that tube in, hell the nerve tests and recovery are a whole nother night mare but it's off topic. The theory was my system was so fried with all the high dosages of drugs I built up some tolerance for the anesthesia specifically the one that affects memory. (he explained it to me but I was like whatever dude, that shit sucked).

As soon as I woke up my arm worked again, it took months for the feeling to return to my hand. The surgeon said my ruptures were significant and debris had traveled down my spine and nerve that he had to go dig out - my theory is when the pain clinic shot that crap in me the fluid moved the debris and caused more issues.

I came off all the drugs cold turkey the day I went home, omfg the withdraws were bad but I toughed it out. All I could eat was icecream and I ate that shit by the gallon tub, between the icecream, coming off the drugs, I blew up like a balloon, I had full on tits and my skin was SO bad, I have acne scars from it. About 10 days after I was home I decided it was time to get back out, I was in a collar so I went to the grocery store with my wife, short trip, I needed to get out. We were there for about 20 minutes and by the time we were in checkout I was on my knees, I slept the rest of the day way. A couple of weeks after that I was back in the gym on the treadmill, soon as the collar was off I was doing minor movements with 5lbs dumbells.

Soon as the doctor told me I could lift more than 50lbs or whatever the hell it was I was back on the weights, I threw, I think it was a 5 on each side of the bench and tried to lift it, my left arm collapsed - my tricep was non existent along with my delt, pec, you name it, it was gone. I threw down on test/npp/dbol/HGH/TB500 and worked CAREFULLY in the gym, I don't remember what I ended my cycle at but my bench and squat both came up above 250lbs and my left side was coming back (all except the long head tricep) and I was starting to look like a man that works out instead of a tub of lard.

About a year later I'd say I was 90% recovered but my one tricep is GONE, so they sent me for an EMG and nerve conductivity test. The nerve conductivity test showed good conductivity - after that test I told the woman well that wasn't so bad - then the torucherer broke out the needles. If you haven't had an EMG, they basically drive a needle down into your muscle, dig around for the nerve then when the find it they make you flex that muscle. She probed my ass for 2 hours, wore me out, felt like I run a marathon by the time she was done. The result, signal problems from the C6-7 nerve root, it's damaged.

I'm not fused yet, another doctor said they removed a hell of a lot of bone and that's why it's taking so long, and then I get the normal "don't lift over your head, don't crash your motorcycle" but I can't get ANYONE to tell me just exactly how fragile I am.

I'm not even two years past surgery and I'm mid cycle now and I'm holding back on most of my lifts, my shoulders are way behind because I take it super easy on shoulder press or anything over my head, I don't really push any lift but I'm up in the low 300's on my big lifts now so even taking it easy (no maxing out etc) has to be putting a lot of load and stress on my neck (I can really feel it in my neck when I dead lift).

So when I started squatting 325lbs, my neck "felt funny" and I was like ok maybe I should back it down so I've capped it at 300lbs for now but from time to time I get that grinding metal vibration up my neck (I squatted on Tuesday and my neck is sore today). I don't sit the bar on my neck but C6-7 is low, with the bar across my traps I gotta be right at the site.

I'm scared to death I'm going to snap a screw or a plate, but I don't want to limit myself if there is no need. I can't help but remember what my body was like before the surgery, I want that back.

Talking to the doctor is worthless, when my surgeon found out how much my wife was squatting he flipped out so I was like well shit there is no point in telling him what I'm doing.

DDD/DJD means degenerative disc disease or joint disease.

That is an amazing amount of damage to have happen. I'm guessing you already had a large amount of degenerative changes to the cervical spine, Regardless it happened no matter the cause.

I would say that you should be ok with Squat and bench, deadlifts are a no go, unless you want to re-injure your neck.

Squats you would obviously want to use a low back technique and maintain a neutral head position. Bench, again you would probably would really need to watch your form.

Dead lifts are going to compress your cervical spine because your traps and paraspinal muscles will compress those segments. You have a cage and surgical screws that prevent motion at the levels of the fusion. Part of why they put the cage in is to preserve the neuro-foraminal canal where the spine nerves exit.

Depending on how long the nerves had been compressed and or if they were severed. You should be able to get some of their function back. It will take a number of years but they will regenerate to some extent. You just have to avoid re injuring them.

i was diagnosed with spondilosis or something like that in my early 20's, being young and stupid i was like whatever. doc said the bones in my neck had changed shape, i forget the term he used but yes, my understanding is my problems where due to a disease that affected my bones.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GSXRvi6

i was diagnosed with spondilosis or something like that in my early 20's, being young and stupid i was like whatever. doc said the bones in my neck had changed shape, i forget the term he used but yes, my understanding is my problems where due to a disease that affected my bones.

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Yeah, spondylosis basically means arthritic changes to the bones. Have you had your low back examined as well?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MuscleScience

Yeah, spondylosis basically means arthritic changes to the bones. Have you had your low back examined as well?

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yes, it's in my low back too but very minor, none of the doctors that have seen my lower back were concerned and said at my age it isn't looking bad. My neck has always sucked but i have never had lower back issues.