Strength recovery

[Chris1977]

I had a c5/6 disc bulge pressing on nerve which initially caused significant pain. The pain has subsided to intermittent after a week with spasms in right pec, tricep and back. Strength is very weakened to around 20% of pre injury. How long before strength returns?

[johnsmith]

It doesn't return. Strength in the arms depends on strength in the back. As soon as strength and support in the back is put into place you impinge on nerve and lose strength.

You are going to need to investigate what complementary support you can get in order to have as low discomfort as possible and as strong as possible. You are going to have to learn a whole set of movement skills which involve not doing certain things and having enough awareness to stop doing certain things.

This appears to be a bit cryptic. Reply if you want a bit more detail. How did you get your "c5/6 disc bulge"?.

[Chris1977 in reply to johnsmith]

Surely as the disc bulge reduces, normal muscle function returns?

[johnsmith in reply to Chris1977]

You will hopefully get normal muscle function. However, muscle strength is a different issue. You do not want to repeat what caused the disc bulge. My understanding is that disc bulges may reduce you still have an area of reduced space and potential weakness in spinal structure.

"A bulging disc can commonly be referred to as a slipped disc or a protruding disc. However, when the disc bulge is significant enough for the disc nucleus to come out of the annulus, it is known as a herniated disc."

physioworks.com.au/injuries...

You are now in the position where you need to take action to prevent a recurrence at a later date. Worth looking at Alexander Technique lessons.

alexandertechnique.com/

[TheLongWait]

Your strength can return, but not always to it's full extent. I had neck surgery, had hand weakness and arm weakness. But once the nerve settled down a lot more strength returned. Every case is different, but keep positive, work really hard with physio. Never give up, because many people have surgery and live to tell the tale, get better, but they may have the scars of some nerve injury, but they find ways to get around it. This is why people should never wait too long for surgery! I waited too long with neck surgery, I feel my recovery could have been even better if I had the surgery earlier. But I had a good outcome considering how long I had lived with nerve impingement.

I think it takes up to 2 years for nerves to recover, so it is a long road. After 2 years you will know whether they will recover or not. Muscle strengthening is very important, and nerves can re-map. The body is amazing, a lot of people don't give it the credit it is due at times. NHS professionals often talk rubbish, they take hope, don't give it enough. At least that has been my experience.

Don't bother with NHS physios, they are atrocious beyond belief! Try a few sessions with a good private physio, read books on it. Avoid chiropractic quacks. Discover muscle balance strengthening, positive thinking, you can do it! I know someone who had a fusion, they could not sit for 4 years before it, NHS did the operation. She wasn't perfect after, but she had a very full life, managed intensive gardening, travel, children, grandchildren...life did go on. Imagine if she hadn't had the surgery? No life really. I wish you all the best, never give up hope, become an exercise warrior. Even if baby stepping with some rubber band workouts to begin with.

[johnsmith in reply to TheLongWait]

You say: "Avoid chiropractic quacks". Can you explain what you mean by this.

[TheLongWait in reply to johnsmith]

They are quacks, fake medicine, not doctors as they call themselves. They damage people's spines with what they call adjustments, they can cause strokes. They are going to charge you over £1 per minute for what will only ever be temporary relief, or short term belief after some clever brain washing speeches, or worst of all damage you. A good hands on physiotherapist is what is needed. Chiropractors are absolute quacks. Some will disagree, they will be deluded by chiropractors or will be one themselves. A spine surgeon worth his/her salt will tell you to stay well clear of them, they see the damage they do. They are no more than gas poppers with some mystical belief that they move energy, clap trap. But the choice is there, they don't get rich without a lot of believers, but then even Charles Manson had followers.

If you want to get stronger, the only way is through common sense advice, positive thinking and very good consistent exercise.

[johnsmith in reply to TheLongWait]

You clearly do not like chiropractors. I have been having chiropractic treatment on the NHS since 1994. I understand the short length of time some of the treatments last. There is an engineering reason for this. It is to do with feedback mechanisms. There are good hands on physiotherapists. Many of these have studied the techniques of Thomas Myers. There are many physiotherapists who have no understanding of spinal reflexes and how the body is an engineering system. I have met physiotherapists who I would describe as butchers and should have been dismissed from their profession.

The chiropractors I know have a great deal of hand sensitivity. This is not something you can write and describe in a paper report. There have been chiropractors who have caused strokes by doing something they should not have. This is a fraction of a percent and I hope they have retired from doing certain chiropractor treatments. In the UK all chiropractors have to be registered by law and have had to done a appropriate training course to a professional standard.

Some chiropractors have done PhDs. This entitles them to be called doctors. However, what is important is do they have the sensitive hands to do the treatment required. A PhD is paper qualification showing that you have done the research to justify the title of Dr.

I Know how some of their techniques work. They work well. In some people they can only last a short period of time. In my case a treatment starts to fail after about four weeks. This is because muscle is doing the job of ligament and my muscles on one side gradually become more and more contracted. Every five to six weeks the chiropractor uncontracts the muscle and the cycle of contraction starts again.

When it comes to exercise there is no such thing as common sense advice. There is exercise which does a lot of damage. There is exercise which provides healing. I am still trying to master this under the guidance of an Alexander Teacher. There are lots of subtleties to doing exercise well. This consideration is lost to many in the population without careful explanation.

You say: "They are no more than gas poppers with some mystical belief that they move energy, clap trap." I am one of those who can play with energy shifting. I can demonstrate this. The people who can do this are a low percentage of the population. The people who can do this well in the art of healing is even lower. I am not one of those, but I have met those who are. I know from experience that there is a large percentage of people who are totally blind and deaf to these sort of energies. To them what I try and demonstrate is something that does not exist. It is the IQ factor. Not everyone can sing well. Some people are tone deaf. Some people cannot hear at all. It does not mean that good singing does not exist.

I gave up on positive thinking years ago. What I have cannot be cured. It can only be managed. This is endurance thinking.

[TheLongWait in reply to johnsmith]

Sorry if I offend you with my views, it is not my intention. But chiropractors having a PHD means nothing more than they have intensely studied their chosen field and they retain knowledge very well. I still think they are certainly entitled people, not entitled to be doctors of medicine.

Everything has a place I suppose, but it sadly includes the bad and often the delusion and desperation of another. Chiropractors are mostly very misleading, manipulative and brain washing individuals who make money out of giving false hope. Yes just an opinion, but if you researched work done by ex-chiropractors who turned away from the practice due to guilt and disgust in themselves, they will tell you how deliberately misleading the whole thinking is. It is there to make a lot of money without any real talent, and those who think they can heal people in a few snaps and adjustments are dangerously deluded and narcissistic, if not nasty. Often they are on YouTube or some other medium touting for business with false claims.

Even if they didn't do this they will still make a fortune. Pain and disability is often not something that can be cured, but those in pain will try anything. If you recorded your first few visits to a chiropractor when they are talking you into it, you would see they are using manipulation and false claims to brain wash you to part with you hard earned money with false hope.

But, if you feel it will cure you and bring back your strength, then maybe it will. Because that is the power of positive thinking. Imagine it will happen and mind over matter maybe it just will? Without paying £1 to £2 a minute for the privilege or the privileged chiro, it might happen anyway?

If I said to a deeply religious person that I believe in Santa Claus, they would dispute the possibility. If I disbelieve quacks and gurus, an argument for why they are great will be produced by the ones making the money, or the ones duped into believing their quackery. It has never been proven, I'm pretty sure it never will be proven to work either. Just like someone who has done a PHD in religious studies, but can't produce God, only the belief in him/her/IT.

That is why there is a place for everything, realism, or mysticism, or whatever else in-between. Does either cure? Well I have been down the road of quackery, pills, mindfulness, physio, talking therapy...you name it. Before my operation, which I did not rush into I was in constant horrendous pain through direct nerve pressure. Never getting better, only ever worse. Now I am 80% better than I was before, some days even better than that. It almost completely cured one problem, wish it was more. But only the real doctor could do that, the quack can only give false hope.

I choose realism and positive outlook, but always putting maximum effort into exercise. Exercise is the only way you will ever gain back muscle strength, that and being really healthy living too. If the Chiro gives you something to believe in and a psychosomatic response occurs, then it might be ok. But if they damage you, that is one heck of an expensive regret.

I am still in utter disbelief that the NHS will fork out for the chiro! That postcode lotto is in effect where you live I can tell you that. In some parts they won't even give physiotherapy.

[Chris1977 in reply to TheLongWait]

I’m mixed with chiro work. I recognise that stimulating certain pathways in the spine can help healing progress but it certainly doesn’t resolve conditions which a fair few advertise will happen. In my experience no individual treatment will be enough. Physio / Osteopath / Chiro / Doctor all have a tool to support you but at the end of the day only you can take the action / lifestyle required to make a difference. I try and stay away from pain killers and I must learn the Alex Tech’. This injury is hard going - overnight I went from 45 press ups in a minute, training for a world championship to zero strength in the right side. But yesterday my body gave me 4 press ups and then promptly told me off with some increased nerve pain. I’ll follow the guidance of the experts, have the injection and look forward to the potential OP. Then slowly rebuild and retrain the body. Never know I might do a veterans World Championship in a couple years

[johnsmith in reply to TheLongWait]

You did not offend me. You can view things only from your own experience. I know about manipulation and I know why it is needed. I have reduced someones pain though manipulation.

Muscle 101. Muscles have a nerve input to give the message to contract. There is no nerve input to tell a muscle to lengthen. For a muscle to lengthen it needs another muscle pulling on it. The spring in the fascia can also help in the lengthening process. Sometimes a muscle over contracts and when this happens there is a need for the muscle to be lengthened by hand manipulation.

Muscle is stronger at its longest length. This means that the more a muscle contracts the weaker it becomes. What can happen is an error condition can take place. There is a requirement to apply a bit of strength to move something. The brain contracts the muscle but the muscle is not strong enough to move something. The brain puts in more effort. Unfortunately instead of employing more muscle fibres, which would apply the needed strength, the brain demands greater contraction which makes the muscle weaker. We are now in feedback loop more contraction weaker muscle more contraction applied. The muscle becomes over contracted and now cannot to be lengthened out by other muscles or by fascia. A need develops for hand manipulation assistance.

Sometimes for one reason or another the fascia layers cannot slide over each over because of adhesion. When this happens there is a need for hand manipulation.

Yoga is a skilled science for dealing with this issue. Unfortunately, a person requires training in the science from someone who knows it. The training is time consuming. T'ai Chi is another route. However, you cannot get the needed training from someone who knows easily. So one ends up going to a chiropractor, a sports therapist or some sort of massage therapist to manipulate the over contracted muscle.

Fibromyalgia treatment requires working on over contracted muscle and fascia problems. It takes a long time and can be painful work to get functioning back.

Some conditions cannot be resolved and only managed by using a variety of different therapies.

Some conditions are a combination of overloaded system with stresses past the stress breakdown point. When this happens a chiropractic treatment could drop the system stress below the stress breakdown point with the result that the system stops functioning again. The chiropractic treatment has not cured the problem over reduced the stress. This why for some types of asthma condition the chiropractic treatment has removed much of the need for asthma medication by taking the system stress below the stress breakdown point.

Hope I have giving better understanding of some of the issues.

[TheLongWait in reply to johnsmith]

Thanks for your reply, glad you were not offended. The science behind all this chiropractic and other forms of non-science based therapy is not science. But it is your belief, so I would say it is your choice of course.

Fibromyalgia is a myth, the next big claim the world will see. PPI has nothing on a made up syndrome that keeps people in a box of pills with no hope. Chronic fatigue from an underlying cause, potentially nerve/spinal cord/brain injury. But if it is difficult or expensive to diagnose and treat, there comes the syndrome. Chronic fatigue 'syndrome', a term for a very tired and worn out person who never feels rested. Syndromes are descriptions for life sometimes. Forget the cause, treat the symptoms.

It is too expensive to treat all people for all things, and not always possible to eliminate these problems, so let's not try. Cheaper not to bother. Then the QUACK comes in, and costs the sufferer money and deludes them with pseudo science. Sorry, there I go again, but I just don't buy it.

There have been witch doctors claiming to cure cancer, chiro quacks can't do this 'YET' or they would lose their mansions being sued. But because the medical profession have allowed it, we are stuck with this crap. Hands on physio, not chiroquacktic adjustments and little machines that go click. It is ludicrous clap trap. The only way the NHS can allow this hypocrisy is because they together with the quack have an agenda. It takes the strain off the medical profession, turns a sufferer into a believer, if they drain their bank accounts on something that is psychosomatic relief/placebo, who cares, less spent on surgery and real medical intervention.

Pseudo-science in gobbledegook has no place in medicine. Syndromes and their names are made up by people who just don't have the answers and the main agenda is money.

We need to go forward with ground breaking medicine and pioneering surgery techniques. If we allowed pseudo science too much leeway, we would be back to the dark ages.

I realise if people love alternative therapies and wasting money on hot stones etc it is not exactly harming them, relaxing and pampering is nice. But people die under the chiropractic, they are injured for life. They manipulate very easily led and mostly desperate people, they will say anything to keep you coming! If you decide to believe it, the only person you can hurt is yourself, if medical professions push 'alternative therapies' that can have dire consequences on others to get them off the consultants waiting list, on their conscience be it.

[johnsmith in reply to TheLongWait]

Thank you for the reply.

First 12 years of my working life was in quality and reliability working on transistors and integrated circuits.

I have three A levels. Biology, Physical Science (mixture of Physics and chemistry) and Maths.

I have HNC Applied Physics with endorsements in Instrumentation and Control (Feedback control mechanisms), Physics and Maths.

I have a BSc (hons) in Oceanography with Physics. This included Biophysics.

I am well acquainted with scientific method and analysis. I am also acquainted with the PLOS paper providing evidence that much of medical research Findings before 2005 is false.

journals.plos.org/plosmedic...

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False by John P. A. Loannidis

Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris talks about the problems of Medical Trials. The science journal "Nature" and "Science" has discussed the problems of medical trials and false results. Both journals are well respected in the Science field.

I can say more on the subject. You need to do your own investigation and cross reference material.

[TheLongWait in reply to johnsmith]

Hi again.

Millions of deluded quacks have degrees and PHD's, it isn't at all impressive. You can have a degree in all sorts but still be pretty stupid. A manipulative money grabbing deluded individual is just that, PHD or not. Leaching off the sick with BS therapies that do not work, have never been proven and never will be proven is not medicine. It is financial gain of the lowest form. Placebos have been proven to work, it is mind over matter. That is all a quack can offer.

You will never ever make me believe your pseudo-science is anything other than a way to get rich quick from desperate people. It is not science, don't mix science with gobbledegook and then we have a place for both if that is what people really want. A person is not making an informed choice when a deluded individual is using science as a description for witchdoctor mumbo jumbo.

I think manipulative people making money from quackery and duping ill and pain sufferers into believing they can fix them is abhorrent. They deserve a PHD in VILE.

Chiroquacks will say you need to see them for 20 minutes twice a week for months, then have regular follow up adjustments, you are the blind leading the blind.

I don't wish to read any more of your thinking behind why you are right if you have an A level or degree in something that has never been proven and is not science. It is fine to have your beliefs, but in a world of desperate attention seeking, money minded behaviour which manifests itself through social media and advertising of ones amazing abilities and achievements to all who will listen...this world is losing the sodding plot!

Adjustments will do as much for you as religion will do, no science, only delusion. You don't need to pay for religion, so even after the misery that has caused the world including war, divide and hate it is still argued to be great for you! Go for it I say, but try to only hurt yourself, not others hey!

[Chris1977 in reply to TheLongWait]

How did my post evolve into a debate over pros and cons of chiropractors/quacks 😂.

More frustrating is when you get told you need a spinal operation and that you are being referred for a spinal injection to help with pain, just for that department not to contact you and when you chase them up, they say you don’t exist on the NHS system. Seems my referral is lost and the departments I’ve seen all pass the buck. I’m now left with having to make a complaint against the NHS to try and prompt them to take some patient responsibility.

[TheLongWait in reply to Chris1977]

Sorry about that, but I was asked to elaborate on why I think Chiroquacktics are quacks, basically it is because they are. Quacking quackers. Rich quackers, they even put cheese on quackers. Imagine the noisy excitement when someone gets bread out?

That is awful to hear they lost your referral, the NHS is in such a mess.

You are so much better off making a complaint through PALS, it will expedite your referral, might make them take your more seriously too. Sadly this ends up being what so many of us have to do. A complaint just through the NHS could be a long process, up to a year. You can do both.

But PALS can usually sort things out quite quickly. They will send your complaint directly to the relevant department and I think you will be be seeing an appointment fairly quickly should you do that.

I hope you get some help in the form of injections, they can help sometimes. I had quite long term relief from one lot of injections, they allow you to do more physio which you need.

I think being treated fairly is very important as you will be stressed enough as it is.

Strength can return, you would be surprised by how many people have been written off somewhat and they return doing something incredible.

I do wish you well, hope they sort out a quick appointment for you.