Injury

Under this tab, you can read all about my c5/c6 disk herniation and foraminotomy as well as the hand condition I have, called Dupuytren's Disease or Viking's Disease (hence the name of my blog, correct). It's all about pre-op worries to post-op and recovery.

I will also include links to pages that discuss athletes with these injuries/diseases, or reference where I have them.

C5 / C6 Disk Herniation and Posterior Foraminotomy:

Stats:
March 2014: 

• Numbness in my left thumb and tingling in my arm
• 6 weeks of Chiropractic manipulation and massage therapy did not help.

April 2014:    

• Increased pain in my shoulder, and limited range of motion.
• X-rays of shoulder showed nothing but healthy bones.

May 2014:    

• Increased pain in shoulder, arm, and hand; increased tingling and numbness
• X-rays of C-Spine showed narrowing space between c5/c6 and loss of natural curve in C-spine 
• EMG showed decreased muscle strength at C5/C6
• 6 weeks of twice a week PT, including ultrasound therpay
• 1 week of steroids for pain

June 2014:

• MRI showed disk herniation at C5/C6 to the left side
• Surgeon 1 wanted to replace the disk
• Surgeon 2 gave me 4 options
• Surgeon 3 said to wait or have a fusion
• Pain got increasingly worse
• Dry needling for pain management helped
• Taking oxycodone and steroids for pain

July 2014:

• ER visit on July 3rd
• Taking oxycodone and Valium
• 6 weeks of 1 PT session per week, including ultrasound therapy
• Filing for Surgery with surgeon 2
• Surgery was approved and scheduled for 8/19

August 2014:

• Waiting for surgery
• Doing slow WODs at the gym with a lot of core work
• Pain slowly improved
• 8/19 surgery as planned
• Recovering from incision pain and trauma from surgery
• Pain in shoulder, upper arm, elbow and wrist every now and then
• No tingling or numbness since surgery

September 2014:

• Incision site is healing well
• Tolerable pain in shoulder, when I lift left arm
• Slowly increased walking distance and pace
• 9/3 first PT session

3 week post-op

Posts:

Here is my first post about the injury.

This one is about seeing specialists and surgeons and includes some references to scholarly articles as well.

About the ups and downs or pain cycles, and this one about athletes with neck surgeries (with links to articles, also in comment section).


Dupuytren's Disease / Viking's Disease:

Here is what the hand surgeon said about my "disease".